


Tail Currents

by Untherius



Category: Emberverse - S. M. Stirling, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
Genre: F/M, Mer-sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philip awakes to find his life and his world irrevocably and dramatically altered.  He must now rely on Syrena as much as she had relied on him.  The two of them leave the waters of Whitecap Bay to forge a new existence that neither of them would ever have imagined in their wildest dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Rude Awakening

Philip was momentarily surprised as Syrena rose up to meet his lips with her own. He hadn't been sure she'd do it. She'd shown herself to be unpredictable and clearly more than one of the mindless automatons the other mermaids appeared to be. He'd begun to wonder if she might even have once been human. If that were so, then perhaps she truly possessed a soul.

What she did next surprised him more. Instead of releasing him as she returned to the water, she gently pulled him in after her. He allowed her to do it and in so doing surprised himself. One way or another, he was dead already, whether from the wound in his side, the gangrene that would surely infect it here in this tropical climate, or whatever it was that now awaited him in the darkness below. He'd given his life to save hers and now his life, or what was left of it, was in her hands as much as his soul was in God's.

Down, down, she pulled him. The pressure hurt his ears terribly, nearly surpassing the pain in his side. He didn't know if the stories were true, the ones about a mermaid's kiss, but he held his breath all the same. A short time later, darkness closed in around him. Whether it was from the light-less depths or the coming of death he couldn't be sure. Then his consciousness slipped and true darkness took him.

*****

Philip awoke suddenly. He was immediately aware of several things nearly all at once. Firstly, he was underwater--about twenty feet of it from the look of what he guessed to be the midday sun glinting on the surface above him--his bare back resting flat on a sandy bottom. Secondly, he wasn't particularly concerned about that. Thirdly, he was no longer in any pain or discomfort whatsoever. Fourthly, he was holding his breath.

 _Breathe_ , said a voice in his head. He recognized it as Syrena's. It sounded to his mind much like it did to his ear. He paused, unsure what to make of it. Breathe, she repeated. He opened his mouth to take a breath and inhaled warm, tropical water. To his surprise, it felt as natural as breathing air, though it took a little more physical effort, and he found it to be not at all uncomfortable.

 _Am I dead?_ he wondered to himself.

 _No_ , replied Syrena.

 _You...can hear me?_

 _Of course._

 _Surely I must be dreaming, then._

 _No, Philip, you are not._

He blinked, still unsure what to think. He caught something moving out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to the right. There, barely two feet away, was Syrena. She lay front-down on the sand, her crossed arms supporting her and her tail stretched out behind her. She was gazing at him in that curious way she had most of the time they'd known each other. It was then that he noticed that his eyesight was un-blurred as he would have expected from being underwater. He twisted his torso and propped himself up onto his right elbow and looked into her eyes. He reached out with his other hand and gently touched her cheek. She leaned into it. They both smiled.

 _If I'm not dreaming, then how is this possible?_

 _I saved you._

The memories of those last minutes by the pool flooded back into his mind. _Then the stories are true...that a mermaid's kiss does save a man from drowning._

 _That and more._

 _More?_

 _Have you not noticed?_

 _Noticed what? That we can speak to each other without talking...with our minds?_

 _That and more_ , she repeated.

 _You speak to me in riddles._

She made a giggly sort of shrug as a Syrena-sounding giggle went through his mind. Then she looked over at his lower extremity.

He followed her gaze. His eyes went wide and if he could have gasped underwater, he would have done so. To his utter astonishment that verged on horror, his legs were gone. In their place was a tail much like that of his mermaid companion, but longer, more than twice the length his legs had been. It was silvery underneath and olive green above, with blue bars issuing from a wide dorsal stripe and tapering to end at two thirds its circumference, all peppered with small, blood-red blotches. It held the same type of wide, forked, sturdy, horizontal caudal fin that Syrena had, but lacked the feathery bits that adorned hers. That fin was a bit broader than hers, its trailing edge lacking fimbriation. The transition from skin to scales began about where his belly button had been. His hips seemed a little narrower and his torso a little longer, although he was unsure if it was so, or merely an illusion. There were two orifices where his pizzle had been. Taken on the whole, it was truly magnificent, which was currently lost on him in the face of his surprise.

 _I hope you like the color_ , she told him.

He blinked several times. His mind spun until he finally regained something resembling control of it. He looked back at her. _What...how...why...I...I don't understand!_

Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. _I saved you._

 _Like this?_

 _You...do not like your gift?_ Her tone matched the expression of hurt perplexion on her face.

 _Gift...oh, Syrena. I'm so sorry. I'm such a fool!_ He punctuated that last word pounding his fist on the bottom. A small cloud of sand puffed up. _I would give you legs and see them as a blessing. You do the same for me and yet I blame you for it. How wrong of me! Will you forgive me...again?_

 _Of course._

He exhaled. _I...still don't understand._ He reached out again and took her gently by the hand. _Please...help me understand._

 _You were mortally wounded. I could not let you die. This was the only way to save you._

 _My soul was at peace...is at peace. You needed do nothing more._

 _You saved me, Philip. Now we have saved each other._

 _So now what? Do we return to our worlds as though nothing has happened? And when next I return to water, what then? Will my legs again merge together into..._ His thoughts broke off as he gestured to his tail.

 _You can never leave._

He frowned and furrowed his brow in consternation. He sat up in what he was sure looked to be an attempt to rise to his belated knees. She deftly swished around until her tail was supporting her as she sat upright, half her tail still laid out behind her. By now, he'd risen into a similar position. Their combined motions had stirred up a cloud of sand. She took his face in both her hands and gazed into his eyes.

 _Philip, listen to me. Her thoughts were full of tender but earnest concern. There are some things you must know. You were dying and in order to heal you, it was necessary for me to transform you into one of us. When I did this, I lost my ability to have legs...and so have you. I do not understand why or how, but it is the way it is. This is the first time in our long history any of us has taken a man in this way. My sisters...my sisters will not understand. They will not understand why I did not kill you. They will not understand why I saved you. Nor will they understand why I changed you._

As Philip was still forming his next thought, Syrena continued, somehow knowing that thought.

 _No, Philip, you are not a mermaid. Do not be so dramatic. You are a mer-man._

He looked down at the base of his tail. _Then where is my...pizzle?_

She looked at him quizzically. _Pizzle? What is that?_

He blinked at her, unsure how to answer. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing he'd ever discussed in polite conversation. Instead, he conjured a mental image of the organ in question and held it in his mind's eye.

 _Oh, that_ , she replied before he could ask her if she could see his image. _It is on the inside, silly. As with whales or seals._ She directed his attention to her own southern end. She likewise had two orifices, the fore-most one quite a bit larger than the corresponding one on him. _See? We are different. I had to...rearrange a few things. Trust me, it will work better this way._ She turned and began to swim away.

Philip's next thought stopped her. _And we're naked!_

She turned to face him once more. _You are strange, Philip...a good man, a kind and tender man...but strange. Of course we are naked! Surely you do not think we could swim well with all of that...encumbrance?_

 _Are you sure this isn't a dream?_

 _Why do you still doubt, Philip?_ At that, she turned, flickered her tail lazily and glided off leisurely through the water.

Philip flicked his own tail--which felt at once strange, interesting and natural—and swam after her. _Wait! Please don't leave! I...I need you!_

Syrena paused and twisted around to face him as he swam up to her. _You do?_

 _Of course I do! I have no idea how to be a...a merman. This as as strange and frightening for me as I imagine your captivity on land was for you._

She drew closer to him. _Is that all?_

 _And...I enjoy your company._

She smiled. _We...are drawn to one another...are we not?_

In reply, he closed the remaining distance and kissed her. It felt different underwater than it had by the pool, but it was by no means any less pleasant. She leaned into it for a moment and then they broke apart, a little short of breath. He was intrigued that some things still worked the same way down here than they did up there.

 _Why did you do that?_ she asked him.

He didn't have an answer. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time, though he felt he might have to do penance for it later.

Apparently his answer was not necessary. She simply took his hand and tugged on it as she turned to move. _Swim with me._

He followed her. She seemed to be in no particular hurry, which was good, since he still felt a little awkward using his new tail. After a short while, he broke the silence. _Syrena, where are we going?_

 _You do realize that is not my real name, do you not?_

 _Then what is it?_

 _I do not...remember._

 _What should I call you, then?_

She stopped and turned to look at him. She gazed into his eyes as she had before. _Call me Syrena._

He smiled, drifted toward her and kissed her again.

 _Do you...do your people do that often?_

 _Yes._

 _Why?_

 _It's how we express deep feelings for each other. I don't know why._

She smiled. _I like it. Please do it some more._

He complied. Then they resumed swimming. _It seems to me_ , he told her after another short while, _that we have told each other far more with our minds in the last half hour than we did with our voices during the entire time on shore. Does that seem strange to you?_

 _Not at all. This is how my sisters and I speak with each other._

She broke the ensuing silence after a short while. _Philip? Something is bothering you. Will you tell me?_

At first he was unsure how to explain what he was feeling. Syrena waited for him to collect his thoughts. _I came out here to save men for God. How am I to do that from beneath the sea? And now my family back home will be told I died out here...and for what? I am lost, Syrena._

 _No, Philip, you are not lost. I know precisely where we are. As long as you remain with me, you will never be lost._

 _I meant metaphorically._

 _We must tell them._

 _What?_

 _We must go and tell your family that you are not dead...tell them that you are alive._

 _Syrena, I...don't think that's a good idea._

 _Why not? Do they not love you and care about you? Would they not wish to know that you are well?_

 _I can't let them see me like this!_

She stopped and turned toward him, her brow furrowed. There seemed to be a hint of irritation in her eyes. _Like what?_

He sighed. _I'm sorry, Syrena. I didn't mean it like that. It's just...this is still strange for me and I feel it is likely to be so for a while._

Her expression softened and she placed a hand aside his cheek. _Philip, do not worry so much about offending me. Just do not cease to be aware of it._

He nodded. _There's one other thing._

 _And what is that?_

 _My people fear and hate yours. They wouldn't understand. I fear they would try to kill us on sight, even my own family...especially my father._

She frowned. _It cannot be so. Do your people not love their own kind? I have seen them defend each other to their own deaths. Surely your own father would not kill you?_

He chuckled in his mind and her expression told him she heard it in hers. _You don't know my father._

She thought for a moment. _You would rather allow them to continue to believe you have perished? You would have them believe a lie?_

He sighed again. _You're very persuasive. Very well, we'll go. And may God have mercy on our souls._ He began to move, but then stopped. _Syrena? Which way is north?_

She giggled into his mind. _You do not know where your home is?_

 _Oh, I do know...I just don't know which direction is which from down here._

 _Come with me._

She led him over to another place where an even blanket of sand lay on the sea floor and she stopped to hover over it.

She looked at him expectantly. _Show me._

It took him a moment to realize what she was asking him to do. He reached down with a finger and traced a map of the Atlantic coasts, identifying North America, Africa, Europe and his home town off the southwestern coast of England. It was very rough, but she clearly followed it.

She looked at him, then twisted to kiss him. While life as a merman was still new and strange to him and while he didn't know how much time he'd have with Syrena, he was quite certain that her company was going to be very pleasant indeed. He'd have to be mindful of that, though. He may no longer be human, but he was still very much aware of the dangers of giving in to the desires of the flesh.  
She pulled back a little, smiled widely, then turned and swam briskly toward the open ocean. After a moment, he followed her.


	2. Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they swim north, Syrena teaches Philip to fish...the mermaid way. Syrena starts asking questions, which lead to a sudden recollection of something long-forgotten about her kind.

They'd decided to follow the Gulf Stream. It would take them northward up the eastern coast of North America and then eastward to the British Isles whence they'd return following the currents southward to Africa and then back to the Caribbean along the equator. They'd travel faster with the current, food would be more plentiful, and they'd avoid more of the deeper water of the mid-Atlantic.

Philip's stomach chose that moment to growl quite loudly, reminding him of how long it had been since he'd eaten. Some things apparently didn't change.

Syrena turned toward him. _What was that?_

 _I'm sorry. I'm just hungry, that's all. What do we eat, anyway?_

She looked at him like he was crazy. _Watch me and follow my lead._ She changed course and within a minute, they came upon a school of fish. _They will be fast. You must be faster._ At that, she gave her tail a powerful swish and shot out toward the fish with astonishing speed. After three tries, she returned to him grasping a sardine, her fingernails now claw-like and impaling its still-twitching body, her eyes amber and her teeth bared like fangs.

Philip hadn't seen mermaids look like that since he and his involuntary companions had been under attack at Whitecap Bay. It alarmed him to see Syrena looking like that now.

She sensed it and her visage returned to normal. _I...frighten you?_

He was unsure what to think.

 _Do not worry_ , she continued, _we only look like that when we aggress._

He looked from her to the school of fish, then back to her. He turned toward the fish, swished his own tail and hurtled toward them. As he closed on them, he felt his own visage change as well. It took him several attempts to snag a fish. He swam back to Syrena and felt his visage change back to normal. _That felt...strange. And you're right, that's a lot harder than you make it look._

 _They are more hydrodynamic than we are_ , she told him, then bit into the fish and began to eat it.

Philip eyed his own dubiously. It twitched in his hand, blood pouring from the holes in its body.

 _I thought you said you were hungry,_ she told him, chewing a mouthful of fish.

 _We...of course we eat it raw_ , he thought with a mental sigh. He heard her giggle in his mind and it made him smile. He bowed his head and paused for a few moments before raising it again.

 _What was that?_ She'd been watching him, apparently.

 _I ask God to bless my food, thanking Him for His provision_. He bit into his fish. He found it slimy, yet satisfying and he thanked God for that, too. _I could get used to this,_ he told her.

After a good twenty minutes, they'd both eaten their fish. She looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. _Shall we go for another?_

 _I could use one or two more_ , he admitted.

With that, they swished their tails and shot out toward the sardines. Each of them caught two this time. They retreated a few meters and ate them as before.

 _They still taste like fish, though,_ he told her.

She giggled in his mind. _Of course they do, silly. How else would they taste?_

*****

They swam all day and all night, day after day. Sometimes they held hands as they swam, sometimes not. Sometimes they conversed. Often they went for hours without exchanging their thoughts. Philip went right on thinking anyway. He thought about that overland trek begun at Whitecap Bay. He thought about his last minutes as a human by that pool. He thought about what it might mean to live the remainder of his days as a merman. He thought about his youth, about what he'd left at home when he'd set out on his quest to turn the hearts of men back to God. Of course, he thought about God a lot, especially now that he had so many more questions. He could remember nothing in the Bible that said much of anything about any of what he was currently experiencing.

 _You sure do think a lot, Philip_ , she told him one morning.

Apparently he leaked, he said to himself.

 _You leak? What do you mean?_

 _Are there any of my thoughts you don't hear?_

 _Some...but not many._

 _Oh. I'm sorry. If I've been bothering you..._

 _No, Philip, you have not. We learn to shut off our thoughts from each other, my sisters and I. There are so many of us, yet there is so much silence I often feel lonely. Being with you has been...refreshing. I enjoy it a great deal...and I enjoy hearing your thoughts. Your mental voice is pleasant._

 _I'm glad to hear it._

 _Have you always thanked your God for your food?_

Philip was intrigued by her thought process. He found it quite erratic. He wasn't sure if it was because she was a woman, a mermaid, or both. _Since I was a boy, yes_ , he replied.

 _You think about this God a great deal. This must be very important to you._

 _Yes. My whole life has been devoted to God._

 _Tell me more._

 _What do you wish to know?_

 _Everything._

 _You mean you know nothing about God?_

 _Nothing, save what I have gleaned from your contemplations. That is why I wish to know everything you do about this God of yours._

He raised an eyebrow. All his life, everyone he'd ever met had at least heard of God. In fact, most of them knew a great deal about God. The issue had always been whether or not they wanted anything to do with Him. This was the very first time he'd ever met anyone who had no knowledge of God, let alone wanted to know more. Perhaps that was why God had led him to this new life. Perhaps mermaids did have souls and he had been sent to save them. That his ordeal may now have purpose excited him.

 _Then I shall begin...at the beginning._ It was a good thing he knew the Bible backward and forward. Now that he had no access to any physical copy of that book, he had to rely entirely upon his memory. He prayed it would be sufficient. _In the beginning..._

 _The beginning of what?_

 _Everything. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth._

 _The heavens...that is the expanse above the sky?_

 _Yes._

 _How did he create the heavens and earth?_

 _Nobody knows. That's a great mystery that speaks of God's great power. It's one reason I follow Him._ He continued through the account of the creation. Syrena asked questions...a _lot_ of questions! She asked so many of them, it took him what felt like three hours just to finish the first chapter of Genesis. In fact, he was quite certain she'd asked more questions just in that one day than he'd heard most of his fellows ask during his whole time at seminary. He wasn't sure if this reflected well on her or poorly on them...he suspected both. They were good ones, too, and he immediately began to see that she was extremely intelligent, despite her ignorance and fear of the world above the sea.

One side-effect he hadn't anticipated was that all the questions she'd been asking showed him how many questions he had himself. He was unsure if that was good or bad. He took it as a reminder to seek God's wisdom in prayer.

*****

Day turned into night and back to day again. He was certain that had he been talking with his voice, he'd be wholly unable to speak by now. Some of his recollection about who begat whom in the second chapter was a bit fuzzy, but he decided it was of secondary importance.

He'd just finished the account of Noah when Syrena suddenly stopped for no discernible reason.

 _What did you say?_

 _Which part?_

She just stared at him and blinked.

 _Syrena? Are you alright?_

 _I...I remember._

 _Remember what?_

 _I remember!_ A smile spread across her face and she swished over and hugged Philip. _Oh, Philip!_

He instinctively hugged her back. _But what is it you remember?_

 _I remember why we exist._

He looked at her expectantly.

 _We exist because The One...whom you call God...did to my sea-mother what I did to you. Then she did the same to others, including me. It has been a very long time and the memories are like...like waking from a dream and trying to recall it._

 _You...were once human?_

She nodded to him.

 _All of you?_

 _Yes. There have been rumors of a few born mermaids...but only rumors._

 _If you were once human, then...we've been all wrong about you._

 _Please continue, Philip. What happened after Noah?_

He was still getting used to her thought process. It was quite refreshing. So he continued. She asked questions. He answered them as best he could. Some answers he simply didn't know, others he didn't believe were knowable by mortals. At times, there was an obvious cultural disconnect, as with the ten plagues of Egypt. He summarized large parts of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Yes, it was the Word of God and as such, it demanded his respect. Yes, it was important to the people involved in the original events. But did it really matter to Syrena how big the Tabernacle was? Did she really need to know how many days a woman was supposed to remain outside the camp during her menstrual period? He didn't even know if mermaids _had_ menstrual periods. She didn't know what pork was, let alone whether or not one was supposed to eat it, nor why. He doubted she'd see the point of all those sacrifices.

For that matter, nearly everyone he knew completely ignored most of what was called “The Law” anyway, usually on the grounds that it was no longer relevant. He'd known few who'd debated this. He was also quite certain no one on Earth would suggest applying any of this to him and his mermaid companion. For that matter, he didn't know anyone who would believe any part of the Bible applied to mermaids, mainly because hardly anyone believed they had souls. He'd known otherwise almost as soon as he'd met Syrena. He didn't know how he'd known, but he'd somehow known. In the face of her new revelation that she'd once been human, he was now certain of it.


	3. New Perspectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syrena's way of looking at things continues to force Philip to re-think...well...pretty much everything.

Philip awoke as before, lying on the sand with a dozen or so feet of water above him. Only now, he wasn't holding his breath. It seemed to be early morning—the sun had risen, but he didn't know how far. He sat up and rose to the surface. They were somewhere in the Bahamas and they'd been spending some time to gorge on the plentiful fish in these waters before pushing northward.

He expelled the water from his lungs and took a deep breath of air. It was the first time he'd done so since Syrena pulled him into the pool those many days ago. At least, he thought it was several days, although he still had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. For all he knew, it could have been weeks, even months. Syrena continued to withhold that information from him. He suspected it was because she'd been so focused on rebuilding him, she hadn't paid attention to anything else. Or perhaps the passage of time wasn't important to her kind in the same way it was to his.

He floated there, his head and shoulders above the water line, enjoying the tang of the air in his lungs while he gazed eastward toward the rising sun. Part of him wanted to tread water the way he'd learned as a boy. The other part of him overrode that and he swished his tail in the same lazy serpentine motion that had already become second-nature to him. He bobbed in that curious way he'd seen Syrena and the others do at Whitecap Bay. Now he fully understood why. He just floated there, watching the sun rise.

He half-heard, half-felt a disturbance in the water next to him. It began at the surface and he could feel it next to him nearly the length of his tail. “Good morning,” he said without looking.

“Good morning,” came Syrena's expected reply.

“It's beautiful, isn't it? I'd nearly forgotten that I need not completely abandon all I've ever known.”

“Your voices are alike.”

He looked at her with a cocked eyebrow.

She looked back at him and smiled. “Your mouth-voice and your mind-voice...they are the same. I like it.”

He smiled at her, too. He so liked the way the light reflected off of her hair. A subtle change in her smile told him his mind must have leaked again. They floated there for a few moments, then she bobbed over and kissed him, which was something else he very much enjoyed. Their fins brushed against each other in a way he found particularly, yet alarmingly, pleasant and he had to make a concerted effort to expel certain thoughts from his mind.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It's, what, six o'clock in the morning? That would mean breakfast is in an hour or so.”

“Six what in the morning?”

“When the clock strikes seven, we eat breakfast.”

“You are speaking nonsense, Philip. When we hunger, we eat. When we tire, we rest. Is this not all we need here? Is this not a good thing?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then why the need for this...clock of which you speak?”

“It's how we measure time.”

“How is that better than sunrise, or sunset, or moon or tides, or the coming and going of storms?”

He considered this for a moment. This was something else about how his people did things that he'd never really questioned. “I don't know.” After a few moments, he changed the subject. “How long was I in your care? How many days passed from when you pulled me into the pool until I awakened?”

She turned to look at the sun. “I do not know. These things...they take as long as they take...no more, no less.” After a few moments, she turned back to him. “What happened after Sinai? Tell me more as we swim.”

She ducked under the water and swam past him. He followed.

*****

They continued their journey up the eastern coast of North America. They mainly cruised just along the continental shelf. Their course kept them in the Gulf Stream. When they needed rest, they headed to shallower water where they could sleep on the bottom in comfort. He'd been surprised to learn they could withstand depths of at least two hundred fathoms, probably more. The mid-Atlantic was far deeper than that and their crossing would be strenuous. While that worried him, she assured him he'd be up to it after he'd gained the needed tail strength. That training was part of the point of their journey along the coast.

He told her of the fall of Jericho, the conquest of Canaan, the wars between the Israelites and the Philistines. He summarized large parts of Joshua, Judges, Kings and Chronicles. Just as with the Pentateuch, he figured the details of who succeeded whom as the kings of Israel and Judah wouldn't matter much to a mermaid. To be perfectly honest, he had to admit it didn't matter much to him either. Always she asked questions. From anyone else, this might have been trying. Most people he'd heard asking questions had done so out of pride or denial and quite argumentatively. Sometimes those people seemed merely frustrated at the inadequacies of the usual answers, but many others were just as bent on discrediting both him and any other preacher, often hellishly so. Syrena, in contrast, genuinely wanted to know. He made an effort to be ever-mindful that he—or in this case she—who seeks shall find.

She showed particular interest in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes—clearly truth was truth, cultural differences notwithstanding. She thoroughly enjoyed Psalms, even though she didn't understand most of the metaphors. At her prompting, he had to attempt to translate them into something he thought might be within the scope of her experience, even when it initially seemed sacrilegious to him. Psalm 23, for example, became:

God is my protector, I shall not want  
He makes me lie down in sheltered coves  
He leads me through quiet waters  
He restores my soul  
He guides me in the ways of righteousness for the sake of His name  
Although I may swim through the trench of the shadow of death  
I will fear no evil, for You are with me  
Your strong arms and fins comfort me  
You gather a school of fish before me in the presence of my enemies  
You anoint my head with oil, my shoal overflows  
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life  
And I will dwell in the reef of God forever

 _Does this bother you, Philip? You have such love and devotion for you God and for this God's message, yet you seem...distracted._

 _I feel like I'm altering the Word of God. Doing so is...it's like I'm committing blasphemy._

 _Altering it? How?_ He could sense some annoyance in her thoughts. _I thought you were sharing your God's message with me._

 _Well...yes...I am...but..._

 _Have you not been sharing it with me in ways I can understand?_

 _Yes...but..._

 _Have you changed the meaning?_

 _Well...no...but..._

 _You have still been telling me the truth, then, yes?_

 _Yes...but..._

 _If the message is the same and meaning is the same and the truth is the same, then what is the problem? Do the words themselves matter so much?_

 _I...hadn't thought about it like that._

 _You are too hard on yourself, Philip. If your God is as loving and merciful as you say, then I do not think He will strike you down for sharing His truth with another, no matter what words you use. Now relax and tell me what is next...after Ecclesiastes._


	4. A Fish and a Bird?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syrena teaches Philip how to jump. Philip finds this to be a lot harder than his mermaid companion makes it look.

Philip and Syrena floated near a sand spit lying just off the southern tip of Cape Lookout, itself at the southern end of North Carolina's Outer Bank. It was late afternoon. They'd had to wait for a passing ship before beginning in order to avoid being seen. She'd been watching him closely over the past few weeks and decided he needed some intensive training. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he'd known from the moment he'd first regained consciousness that he could trust her when it came to anything related to life under the sea.

“You, Philip dear, have not been using your full power. I have watched you as you hunt and I can tell. Now we will practice. Stay here.”

She disappeared under the water. He waited and waited and waited. Where had she gone and what was she doing? Just then, he spotted some motion off to his right. He turned to see Syrena flying through the air. Her arms were out to her sides and her tail was raised behind her. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. He watched her sail above the sand to dive crisply into the water about a meter from the waterline.

She popped up next to him a moment later. “Now it is your turn. Do you remember what we discussed?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now go and jump for me.”

Philip swam around the end of the spit, which was really two smaller spits joined at the base in a sort of heart shape. He briefly thought this appropriate. Had he just thought that? He forced himself to focus. He popped up inside the water enclosed by the sand and looked at it from this side. It seemed to be two, maybe three meters wide...how hard could it be? He ducked below the surface and gave it a swimming start. The sand rose up from the bottom and he arched his back, bursting from the water. He sailed through the air and for a few moments, he felt like he was flying. It was exhilarating. It was short-lived. Suddenly, he felt his momentum drop. The sand rose up to meet him a meter from the opposite side. He slammed down on it and skidded to a stop near the water line, leaving a furrow behind him.

He lay there for a few moments, fully aware that even mermen could have the wind knocked out of them. He was also aware that Syrena was laughing. He propped himself up on his elbows, blew the sand out of his mouth and glared at her. “That hurt,” he said simply.

“I am sorry,” she said through her laughter, “but you were awfully funny-looking.”

He tried to move, but he seemed to be fully lodged in the sand. How can one be lodged in sand? “How do I get out of here?”

“You must drag yourself.”

He sighed. “This part would be much easier with legs,” he grumbled. He raised his upper body further off the sand and, placing his palms just a bit aft of his shoulder blades, pushed with his arms. He moved a few inches. He looked back at his tail stretching out behind him, then turned back to Syrena. “I hadn't realized just how heavy that is!”

“What would you expect of...” she paused, apparently thinking about something. “...seven feet of muscle and bone?”

Philip took a breath and then repeated his shoving maneuver until his torso was in the water. “Now I know what a sea turtle feels like.” The sand moved frustratingly under his hands and it took him a full twenty minutes to reach water deep enough for him to swish far enough out from shore to let the water support more of his weight. He swiveled around to face Syrena, his elbows resting on the sand.

“Watch me closely,” she said. “I will wait for you on the other side.” She flipped around and vanished beneath the surface. A few moments later, she erupted from the water and sailed over the sand as before, disappearing with a splash on the other side.

Philip flipped around and, as before, got a swimming start. He vaulted from the water and sailed over the sand. As before, he lost his momentum and plowed into the spit, coming to rest about a foot farther than before. He propped himself up on his elbows as before, his chest and the rest of his upper body half-covered with sand. “Ouch,” he groaned.

Syrena stifled a giggle. “You were not watching me,” she said simply.

“No, I really think I was.”

“I do not agree. It is not enough just to swim up out of the water. You must push off of it. I do not think you did that, did you?”

“You're smaller and lighter.”

“Your tail...and your fin...are much larger than mine. You have more power than I do...much more. You do not use its full potential.”

“But...”

“Philip, please do not interrupt. Come here. It is late in the day, yet the sun is still hot. You will dry out and die if you tarry long where you lay. I would very much wish you to live.” She smiled at him.

He took a deep breath and again performed the shoving-and-dragging routine he'd had to do before. The sand was fine, but it still irritated his underside, especially the couple of bits not covered with scales. When he'd reached the water, he swished around a bit to wash off the sand.

“Now follow me and try it again,” she said.

Again she jumped, again she neatly cleared the sand, again he jumped and again he plowed into the sand near the water's edge. Each time, he made it a little further. Once he rolled on impact and while he avoided plowing, he only succeeded in getting completely covered in the sand that stuck not only to the water on his skin, but also to the thin film of mucus that covered his tail. It was most uncomfortable and he was getting more and more sand in places he was quite sure sand was not supposed to be.

“You still do not pay attention, Philip,” she said. He sensed no irritation in her voice the way he would have expected in a human instructor. Instead, she remained calm and patient, yet still insistent. “You must keep moving your tail even when your head is in air. Just before your tail leaves the water, you must _push_ with your fin.”

“How do I do that?”

“Go underwater and watch...very carefully. See how my movements just before I jump are different. Then you do the same. Remember, we are not...porpoises.” At that, she flipped over and disappeared.  
He ducked beneath the surface and watched her. This time he saw what she meant. After she had left, he swam out a little ways and tried it himself. He could feel the difference as he left the water. He noticed he was flying a little higher and faster. He could feel how the pushing motion had forced his tail into the same position he'd seen her holding that first time. He landed just a bit inside the water line. He still impacted on sand and still plowed through it, but the water took some of the force, so it hurt a lot less and he easily glided out into deeper water.

He popped up to see Syrena clapping excitedly and grinning from ear to ear. “You did it! I am proud of you!” He could tell she genuinely meant it and it gave him warm fuzzy feelings. “Now we should practice.” With that, she ducked underwater, only to burst forth from it to sail over the sand once more. He followed her. They spent the next hour leaping back and forth. At some point, it turned into a bit of a chase. They ended what had become their game between the two arms of sand, laying back against it and laughing.

“That was...exhilarating!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it was.”

He looked into her eyes and she into his. Then they leaned toward each other and kissed. He wasn't sure if he preferred it underwater or above water, but he decided to postpone making a decision about that, preferably indefinitely. He also wasn't sure how he felt about kissing her—other than that he liked it—and was less sure how she felt. His father had long discouraged the sharing of his feelings, instead always pushing him to confess his sins, whether real or imagined. This was the first time in years he'd felt it even remotely necessary to make sense of those feelings.

By now the sun had set. “We should sleep, Philip. Tomorrow we must hunt and there is a storm coming.”

He looked at her quizzically. “How do you know that?”

“I...do not know how I know. I just know. Right here is a good place.”

“Shall we sleep breathing air?”

“The tide is falling. We would be stranded by morning.”

He sighed.

She looked at him with an expression he had trouble identifying. “You...you miss your other life, yes?”

He looked away from her and gazed off toward the west. “Yes.”

“You...wish to leave?” There was a sadness in her voice.

He looked back at her and into her eyes. “No. No, I don't.”

She smiled. “I am glad.”

They slipped below the water and into the deeper depression to sleep.


	5. Into the Stormy Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A storm descends on the North Carolina coast. Philip persuades Syrena to assist him with a rescue operation.

Philip and Syrena sat on a rock in Roanoke Sound. Rocks were hard to find there in the vast, sandy alluvial barrier island system. Yet find one they did. For a while, they sat in silence, shoulder-to-shoulder, gazing southward toward Oregon Inlet and swishing their tails absently in the water. Storm clouds approached from the near distance.

“Sing a song, Philip,” she said.

He blinked. She was so...unpredictable. He found it at once disorienting and refreshing. Somehow her request made him nervous, though he was unsure why. “I...don't sing well.”

“Then sing one to your God,” she said simply. “I am sure he will not mind.”

He thought for a moment, then began...

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound  
That saved a wretch like me  
I once was lost, but now I'm found  
Was blind, but now I see

He did, in fact, sing quite well—much better, in fact, than he remembered. He closed his eyes and continued with the other six verses. When he'd finished, he opened them again and looked at Syrena. She was smiling at him.

“You sing well.”

He shrugged.

“That storm approaches,” she said, looking southeastward and changing the subject. “It will be a bad one.”

“How do you know?”

“We watch storms. When one has seen as many storms as we have, one learns how to watch them.”

“Will we survive?”

“Of course we will, Philip.” She seemed to be rolling her eyes without actually rolling her eyes. “But that ship might not.” She pointed eastward at a barely-visible set of sails on the distant horizon.

They sat there and watched as the ship and the storm continued to converge on one another. It became clear that the sun would set long before the ship could reach safety inside the Outer Bank. Philip grew increasingly agitated as the realization dawned on him. Syrena noticed.

“They're not going to make it, are they?” he said.

“No,” she said calmly. “The storm will take the ship. It will smash it upon the sand. Many will drown. I have seen it a thousand times.”

Philip moved to leave their perch.

“What are you doing?”

He paused. “We're in a unique position to help them. I don't know about you, but I can't just sit here and let them die! I won't!”

“They will try to kill us.”

“Yes, I expect they will. But I'll take the risk.”

“Why?”

“Because they're human beings, Syrena...just as much in need of salvation of the flesh as of the soul. I cannot, in good conscience, watch them drown when I know good and well there's something I can do. God led me to this place for a reason and that...” He pointed toward the ship. “...is part of that reason.”

She gazed at him wordlessly with that half confused, half sorrowful gaze he'd seen on her so often the days following their meeting.

“Stay here if you want,” he said impatiently, “but I'm going.” He turned to dive into the water.

“Wait.”

He paused again. “What?”

“You...you are the first man I have ever met who has ever been kind to me...even when I was human. So you must understand my...lack of enthusiasm.” She took a deep breath. “But...if this is important to you...then I will help.”

He smiled, then reached over, took her hand and gently squeezed it. “Thank-you.” Together, they arced over their tails and, in a rolling motion, dove from the rock and into the water.

*****

Philip and Syrena cruised beneath the ship they'd spotted. Night had fallen and the storm was in full swing. The ship rose and fell wildly with the swells. At least once, the hull nearly hit Philip and he'd had to dive deeper. It was disorienting at first until Syrena reminded him to pay attention to his lateral lines. Lateral lines? He didn't recall her mentioning those before. Now that she did, though, he began to be aware of their sensory input. That was confusing in its own way and he wished she'd shared it with him earlier. She seemed surprised that he hadn't noticed them on his own, so perhaps it hadn't occurred to her.

Lightning glinted off the water's turbulent surface. Its light penetrated enough that they could see the sea floor rearing up. As they and the ship neared shore, the sea grew rougher. Philip was surprised he hadn't seen, or sensed, anyone going overboard yet. It wouldn't be too long before the ship would run aground and he and Syrena might not _have_ to save anyone. On the other hand, he knew that it didn't really matter if the water was six feet deep or six hundred feet deep if you didn't know how to swim.

 _What, precisely, do you intend to do, Philip?_

 _We can come up beneath each person who falls overboard, grab them and pull them to shore. We'll have to keep their heads above water._

Syrena was silent for a moment. _Have you ever actually pulled anyone through water?_

Philip thought for a moment himself. _No, I don't believe I have._

 _It is much harder than it looks. And they will struggle, yes?_

 _Yes, I expect they will._

 _They will be terrified by the sea and by us. They will not cooperate, nor will they likely hold still while we explain it to them. Also, it is loud up there._

 _I suppose they'll have to take their chances...possible drowning with us, certain drowning otherwise._

 _Kiss them._

 _What?!_

 _Kiss them_ , she repeated.

 _We can't do that!_

 _Why not?_

 _Because you kiss me and I can't kiss men!_

 _Your people have strange ideas about kissing, Philip._ She sensed his confusion, so she continued. _I kiss you because you like it...and because I do as well. I like kissing you because it is you I am kissing. A touch between lips means nothing by itself...not to me and not to my sisters. The intention is everything. Remember that. I will take port and you will take starboard._ At that, she flipped around to take up an observation position off the ship's port beam.

Philip reluctantly swam over to starboard. He was quite sure she was nuts, quite sure this was moral treason and quite sure he could go to hell for it. On the other hand, if it meant saving lives whose souls might later be saved, then perhaps he could be absolved. Only when he threw himself on the mercy of the Almighty at the end of days would he really know for sure. Would Christ Himself have done something like this, or would He merely have stretched out a hand and calmed the sea like He'd done at Galilee?

The ship started to turn. They both noticed. _They've seen the Bar and they're making for the Oregon Inlet_ , he told her.

 _They will not make it._

 _Are you sure?_

 _Yes._

 _Just how many shipwrecks have you seen?_

 _I have lost count._

 _Have you ever...helped anyone?_

 _No._

Philip stopped and turned toward Syrena. She was a good twenty meters away from him, obscured by the night. _What? Why not?_

 _It is...complicated._

Of course it was.

 _I heard that, Philip._ She seemed annoyed.

 _I'm sorry. Shall we discuss it later?_

 _I would be happy to discuss with you anything you like. Now focus._

A minute later, Philip heard...or, rather, felt...a splash near him. He swam toward it, following the vibrations of a human being thrashing about in the water. Lightning continued to flash, showing him how rough the sea's surface really was. Syrena was probably right—even someone who swam well would be hard-pressed to make it the short distance to shore in water like this, even if they knew which direction that was.

He swam up next to the man who'd fallen overboard and briefly kissed him. He shuddered. He still didn't believe what he was doing. Then he grabbed the man in a bear hug and struck out for shore, dragging him through the water, forcing himself to ignore the man's thrashing. He was quite sure he was going to have plenty of bruises the next day. Perhaps that was his penance, if not for his current behavior, then certainly for any number of past sins—if so, it was satisfactory. Philip released him into the near breakers, flipped around and swam back to the ship where another man had fallen overboard. He repeated the procedure.

He tossed a third man onto the beach when he heard the groan of the ship's hull grinding onto the sand. The sound of it traveled through the water surprisingly well. Several more small splashes sounded in the water around him, men no doubt knocked overboard by the force of the collision. He took care of the nearer-most ones first. It was all surprisingly effective, despite the still highly disturbing aspect of kissing other men. Syrena was kissing other men too and he was trying to avoid thinking about that either.

For several minutes, there were no further additions of men to the water surrounding the ship. Then the ship began to creak and groan quite loudly.

 _The ship is breaking apart_ , came Syrena's thought in his head. _Be ready._

He heard a loud cracking noise, followed by more of the same. Sure enough, the ship was indeed breaking up. Wow, she's good, he thought to himself.

 _Of course!_ came her cheery response.

He smiled. She was truly amazing. Focus, Philip, focus, he told himself.

The ship's hull groaned and crackled as it twisted in ways it was not designed to twist. The more it twisted, the more it cracked and the more it cracked, the more it twisted. A single storm surge crept up from astern and slammed into the ship. As the force of the water tore it apart, it rotated, grinding even harder into the sand. The stern rotated even more, finally tearing free of the bow, and rammed into shore with a prolonged grinding noise.

Men began to fall into the water at an alarming rate. He dispensed with the kissing bit and began to simply drag people away and toss them onto shore, praying that they would survive the now pitifully short trip. A few times, the waves threatened to temporarily strand him. He now also had to avoid flotsam from the ship's cargo, as well as the ship itself as it continued to shift.

Shortly, there seemed to be no more men falling into the sea. _I think we may be finished here, Syrena_ , he thought to her. There was no response. _Syrena?_ He swam around the ship to the other side and looked around. While the occasional lightning helped a little, he saw no sign of her. He then remembered his lateral lines.

He focused on those and it was then that he noticed some abrupt, fishy-seeming struggling motions coming from a bit further out toward sea. He swam in that direction. After a minute, he happened upon Syrena. She was clinging to a shark that seemed to be trying to turn around and bite her. As he swam up, she seemed about to let go. He grabbed the shark from the other side and she re-tightened her own grip. Together, the three of them thrashed about.

 _I was afraid I'd lost you_ , he told her.

 _I am sorry. I am a little...occupied._

 _So I see._ Then after another moment. _Now what do we do? Surely we can't just hang on forever?_

 _Forever, no._

After a few moments, _So what do you usually do in this situation?_

 _Usually there are twenty of us and we eat it to death._

 _Can we eat it to death with just the two of us?_

 _I think so. Let us try!_

With that, her teeth elongated and she took a bite out of the shark's flank. He did the same. The fish twitched violently. Philip and Syrena continued to take bites out of their prey. He was still surprised at how well he'd taken to eating raw—often still live—fish. The smell of blood filled his nostrils as it leaked rapidly from the large fish. After about twenty minutes, the shark began to weaken and Philip and Syrena began to slow down.

 _I think I'm getting full_ , he told her.

 _We can let go now_ , she responded.

They did so. _Good, because my arms are tired._

Her giggle sounded in his mind.

 _That felt good_ , she told him as they swam off northward.

 _What felt good?_

 _Saving those people...you were right._

Philip smiled to himself. There was indeed hope for her...and perhaps hope for her sisters as well.


	6. Never Far From My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Syrena has some unfinished business that has reared its ugly head. She decides she must deal with it alone, and leaves Philip to continue his voyage by himself. With the promise of a future reunion, she urges him to seek out his family with or without her.

Philip and Syrena sat on a rocky spit at the northwestern end of Nantucket Island. The tide was out and the rocks were exposed. He sat with his arms wrapped around his tail in the way he would have had he still had legs. His tail didn't bend quite as well as his legs had, so he didn't quite have it drawn up toward his chest the way he would have had his knees. That stood to reason. While he still didn't know as much about his new anatomy as he did about his old, he was pretty sure his joint structure was entirely different, so he wouldn't hinge like he had when he'd had legs. She sat leaning back, her hands propping her up from behind. He was having trouble keeping his eyes off her and she seemed to be able to tell.  


He took a deep breath, looking out to sea, and then let it back out. He looked over at Syrena and met her gaze. Then he looked down at his tail and lifted his fin from the water, wiggling it thoughtfully.  
“Syrena?” he said at last.  
“Yes, Philip?”  
“I like my tail,” he said simply and smiled at her.  
She cocked her head and gave him that not-quite-blank expression of hers. He still wasn't sure how to read it, but that didn't really bother him. “You do?” She sounded a little surprised.  
“Yes. I do.” He paused and chuckled a little. “Make no mistake, it took some time...time to get used to having it and time to learn to use it. It took more time to stop thinking about it as something attached to my legs. It took still more time before I stopped awakening from sleep and thinking I still have legs. I can't say that won't happen again. For five and twenty years I had legs. I may still have dreams in which I have them, or mourn their loss from time to time. Still, I think I've accepted what I've become...” He looked at her again. “...and I like it.”  
She smiled at him in her way that always warmed his heart. She reached over, took his hand and gently squeezed it. “I am glad to hear it.”

They sat there in silence. Philip finally broke it. “Something's bothering you...isn't it?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

He wanted to pry her, but held his tongue. He'd learned by then that when she was going to say something, she said it when she was good and ready to do so and not a moment before. She knew he was interested in what she had to say about whatever it was, so he'd just have to wait for her to say it. In that way, he supposed he understood her quite well.

He looked back out at the ocean. After a few moments, he felt her draw her hand away from his. He glanced back at her and froze. Her face was filled with sorrow like he rarely saw in anyone, let alone her. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Still he held his tongue.

Then she looked straight into his eyes. He didn't like what he saw in hers. When she finally spoke, her voice was wracked with pain like he'd seldom heard from anyone. “My soul hurts, Philip.”

“I...I'm not sure I understand.” He wanted to understand and desperately so.

“It...it is very hard to explain,” she choked. “But...it hurts. It all hurts...the pain, the death, the tides of years, the weight of centuries crushing down upon me. Here...” She placed her hand over her heart. “...here...” ...now her belly... “...here...” ...her head... “...all over. My soul hurts...it is in pain...in agony such as I have never known. I...cannot bear it!” She started sobbing.

He reached over to put an arm around her.

“No!” she said. “Do not!”

He hesitated, then drew back. His own heart ached for her. He wanted so desperately to help her, but he somehow knew there was nothing he could do. There was only one hope for her and something told him she already knew what that was.

When she'd recovered enough to speak once more, she looked back at him. “I...must leave you.”

“What?” He felt a new kind of fear go through him. “But....”

“No. I must deal with my pain...on my own. I know only that.”

He started to protest again, but she reached over and pinched his lips together with her fingers. Then she reached over with her other hand and held his head between her palms. “Listen to me very carefully, Philip,” she said through her still-flowing tears. “Go to the Azores Islands. Follow the southernmost edge of what you call the Gulf Stream current. It will lead you there. Wait for me seven days. I will find you. If I do not come, you must go to your family and tell them that you are well...that you are not lost. After that, I do not know. This is very important.”

He nodded. She leaned over and kissed him soundly. Then she turned, rolled off the rock and was gone. He desperately wanted to go after her and had to grab onto his perch with both hands to keep himself from doing so. He wanted to tell her that whatever it was, it would be alright. He knew otherwise, that she had to do this on her own, that it may very well be part of her journey to redemption. It was then that he realized that he loved her...this member of an otherwise vicious and misunderstood race, this woman who was at once as gentle as a breeze and as tempestuous as a hurricane. Now she was gone and his life was noticeably empty without her. He looked toward heaven and prayed that she'd find whatever it was she sought. His thoughts were whirling around and he did the only thing he knew to stop it:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name....”

He sat there for what seemed like forever, lost in his thoughts, praying to God, pouring out his emotions in songs. The sun was setting and he suddenly found himself without further reasons to stay here. He took a deep breath, let it out, then rolled off the rock and headed east.


	7. Always Near to my Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having arrived, exhausted from his trans-Atlantic voyage, in the waters surrounding the Azores Islands, Philip searches for Syrena. After more than a week, it's time to continue northward.

Philip lay on a sandy bottom just off the southeastern shore of Faial, one of the central islands of the Azores archipelago. He was quite close to the port of Horta, but on the opposite side of a small flooded cinder cone, just inside the shelter of its inner slopes. These volcanic islands were rocky and steep and it had been frustratingly difficult to find a decent sand bed. Even this one was rough and dark, unlike the soft, fluffy sands of the Caribbean and North American coast. He found it fleetingly odd thinking of sand as something soft in the way he used to think of a feather bed as such.

He'd nearly missed finding the islands, even after following Syrena's instructions. The ocean was so big! He'd had to trail a Portuguese ship, hoping it was headed where he wanted to go. God had been with him and the ship had led him straight into the heart of Azores' waters. It had been a great relief, for he'd been absolutely exhausted. He vaguely remembered gripping the ship's keel to give his tail a much-needed rest, the barnacles on it rough under his hands. He'd let go just before entering port and had weakly fluttered over to where he now lay. He'd fallen asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the substrate, praying that he'd found a safe location. He had.

He awoke one morning, having no idea how long he'd slept. He assumed it was a while, for he'd been awake and constantly moving since he'd left Nantucket. It took him several minutes to fully gain consciousness, which was unusual for him, and he was temporarily disoriented. Being underwater was natural to him now, but it took him a few moments to remember where he was and what he was doing there. Then his stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten in a while either. He supposed that was his first priority. He had no idea where Syrena was, nor how he'd find her if and when she arrived. He did know he'd be next to useless without some food in his gullet.

He resisted the urge to swim recklessly out into the open sea. Instead, he forced himself to pause, look and listen for signs of human activity. He momentarily noted the oddity of that thought. It seemed he occasionally still thought of himself as human, though such impressions of his self-perception were growing fewer and further between. It didn't bother him in the least. What did bother him was how he was going to explain this to his family. He'd tell the truth, of course, but he wasn't sure _how_ he'd approach them.

Seeing, hearing...and feeling...no threats, he swam tentatively out into the water, initially staying close to the bottom. It took him some time to find food. Apparently fish in the Azores chose different living conditions than those in the Caribbean. He almost felt too tired to bring one down. He made a mental note to pay more attention to hunting on his upcoming journey north. He fervently prayed he'd have a certain mermaid at his side to remind him to eat.

He paused with his captured prey in his hands and sighed inwardly. Then he thought the blessing and bit into it. It had a different flavor than the fish he'd eaten in the Caribbean. Even growing up in a fishing village, he'd always thought fish was fish. Now he knew how wrong he'd been about that. Every fish had its own distinctive flavor. It was hard to describe, and often subtle, but there it was.

*****

It had been a week since Philip sailed into the Azores Islands. In truth, though, it was morning of the ninth day. He knew Syrena had told him to tarry here for a week and then go to find his family. He found it ironic that the only thing holding him here was a woman who, for all he knew, was still a thousand miles away. The islands were spread out. He still hadn't been to the westernmost and easternmost ones, just the five in the center. What if she was waiting for him near one of those? What if she was here among the five and they'd been swimming around each other for days? How far did his thoughts travel and how far away could she be and still hear him? He had no answers to any of his questions and it found it quite frustrating.

He'd been pondering those things and more even when only a day from Nantucket. He'd circumnavigated each of the islands twice now. He swam along each of the upthrust ridges between them. The archipelago was really a nice place, all things considered. The waters were clear and clean, there was plenty of food, the climate was mild and there weren't many people. The sea floor was interesting and he was surprised he could see it even when he dove below the light zone. He still longed to explore the islands themselves. That was curious, since there was far more open water between them than there was dry land above the water line. He clearly still felt his human side—at least, he assumed some human part remained with him and there was copious evidence that there was. Perhaps that was how it was supposed to be.

The Azores would have been a great place to live and, in fact, the thought had crossed his mind several times. There was, however, the one undeniable fact that he was lonely and there was only one person who could solve that. Until he found her—or visa versa—he didn't see how that was going to change.

He'd also talked to God—a lot. Many of his prayers revolved around one question: why did God lead him to Syrena, only to separate them so soon? It occurred to him that many people were abruptly separated from their loved ones--so why should he expect himself to be any exception? Still, man was not meant to be alone...it was right there in Genesis, for crying out loud! Several other prayers took some form of supplication along the same lines. Otherwise, short of divine intervention, he had no idea how he was going to find her and he hoped—and prayed—that she had one. Or maybe it was divine intervention upon which he should be relying all along.

He'd spent the morning combing the high sea-floor ridge northwest of Terceira Island for crustaceans. Crabs were tasty, but difficult to eat. That was just as well, since he felt he needed something to occupy his time. Sea urchins were easier. All he really had to do was smash one with a rock and then extract the innards. He thought he remembered something about certain parts of them being toxic, but it was apparently a non-issue for mer-folk.

He surfaced just off the coast of Terceira. It really was quite lovely. He took a deep breath and sighed. A decision suddenly galvanized in his mind, one that had probably been coming together for days. It had been Syrena's idea that he go to see his family. It had been so important to her that she'd specifically mentioned it twice, not to mention that she'd accompanied him unasked when he'd begun his journey. Now that he'd had more time to think about it, he had to admit that it was vitally important to him, too. He really did have no desire to let his brothers...his father...his niece and nephew...continue to believe he'd died at sea. In some respects, maybe he really had died...and been reborn.

In any event, it was time. He'd take one last lap around this island, eat something, then head north to England. He checked again for human activity, then executed a slight, shallow dive and cruised counter-clockwise along the island's western coast barely a meter under the surface.

He cruised past the southern edge of the Ilheus das Cabras, the shattered hulk of an old shield volcano, and attacked a shoal of anchovies. If he was going to head north, he wanted to put away a little more food first. He swam between the cone's two halves and around the curve of its eastern shore, surfacing again before striking out again eastward.

On a whim, he turned southeast toward a place where the sea-floor rose up in a mostly-submerged volcanic cone. He'd hunted there a couple of times with great success and he figured it would be an excellent place to gorge. There were only two miles to that spot and from there he'd have to turn north up the larger island's eastern coast. While he'd already made his decision, he was in no hurry whatsoever.

He attacked two snappers, killing both, and laying one on the bottom to eat later. He'd just sunk his teeth into the first fish's dorsal side when he heard something familiar. He abruptly froze and listened. Sound carried remarkably well underwater. He chewed that bite and swallowed it as he rose to the surface. He listened again. He thought he'd heard singing...Syrena singing, to be precise. At first, he thought he was imagining things, but then he heard it again. Yes, now he was quite certain of it. He turned around, looking for the source. He felt his pulse quicken in excitement and the blood pounding in his ears was making it harder for him to hear.

His eyes fixed on the summit of the sea-mount over the slopes of which he now hovered, visible above water only as a wave-swept rock. Though it was a quarter mile away, he could tell there was someone sitting on it. He couldn't imagine it would be anyone other than her. He abruptly dropped the fish he held and swam in that direction.

He surfaced again just yards from the rock. His heart leaped up into his throat, pounding like a storm surge. His eyes and ears hadn't deceived him, for it was indeed Syrena. She sat on the rock, her back to him, her tail draped gracefully around it, her fin dangling in the waves that washed over the lower part of her body. She was singing “Amazing Grace.” He didn't know why she'd chosen that song in particular, but at that moment he didn't much care. He floated there just enjoying her melodious voice, that voice to which he could listen endlessly for as long as he lived.

He wasn't sure whether or not she'd detected his presence. He didn't imagine she wouldn't, for he still wasn't exactly the model of stealth. He slowly swam clockwise around the rock, keeping his head and shoulders above water and his eyes fixed on her. As he did so, he could see she wore that familiar expression of woeful sorrow...yet there was something different about it and something different in her voice as well. It was hard to define, yet he felt he knew it anyway.

She finally saw him and, though she kept singing, a warm smile crept across her face like the light of the rising sun. He joined her in the final verse before hoisting himself out of the water and onto the rock next to her. He moved to take her into his arms, but she was already moving to the same purpose. Their lips met and he kissed her deeply, holding her body firmly against his like he'd never let her go again. He barely noticed the salt spray washing over them as the waves broke again and again over their fishy lower halves.

They broke apart, now short of breath, and gazed into each other's eyes for a few moments.

“Syrena,” he said at last, “you have no idea how good it is to see you.”

She placed a hand aside his face and beamed at him. “I am fairly certain I do.”

She moved to leave the rock, but Philip stopped her. “Syrena, wait.”

She paused and returned to face him once more. “What is it?” Her face once again held that bewildered expression that he was now sure meant something entirely different.

“I...I have something I've been meaning to ask you.”

“Then ask on our way north.”

“No. I have to ask you now...here...like this. I have to use my voice. It's...very important that I do it this way.”

“Ask.”

Philip swiveled around and braced the midsection of his tail on a lower rock, placing himself a little lower than eye-level with her. “Among my people, we have a tradition. I still don't know much about yours or even if you even have them, but we do. Know that if I still had knees, I'd be on one of them right now.”

He took both her hands in his own, looked deeply into her eyes and took a deep breath. “Syrena, I was drawn to you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. Even then, I felt it was more than just the effect mermaids have on men. As I carried you over land, I felt our connection grow even stronger, though we barely knew each other. When I crawled back to you my last day on land, my heart broke as you appeared dead before my eyes. But I rejoiced when you opened your eyes and looked into mine. When I later awoke on the sand, I was too distracted to notice my relief that you had not left me. I've enjoyed every moment with you after that...yes, even that day you taught me to leap over sand bars.”

She giggled at that. She evidently still found that amusing and he had to admit in hindsight that it had indeed been quite funny.

“When you left me in Nantucket, my heart broke once more. I felt half lost since then and I despaired ever seeing you again. My heart ached the whole time we were apart. Then I rejoiced once more just now. I love you, Syrena.” He paused, ostensibly to let that sink in.

She appeared surprised. “You...you love me?”

“Yes. I love you. I don't think I could bear being apart from you again. I would be honored if you would consider becoming my wife. Syrena, will you marry me?”

She sat there blinking at him. He didn't know what that meant, but he was quite willing to let her take as long as she needed to answer. Finally, her lips curved up in a different sort of smile. It was similar to the one she'd given him just before Blackbeard had robbed her of her tear, but it was somehow warmer and deeper. A pair of tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, Philip. You are a good, dear, wonderful man. You have shown me that men are not all evil. You have helped me remember my purpose. I owe you my life and more...and I love you as well. Yes, I will marry you.”

That was the single best thing he'd ever heard in his entire life...except, perhaps, for the Gospel. At least that was how he felt at this moment. He released her hands and raised himself back up onto the rock next to her. He gently wrapped his arms around her and kissed her tenderly. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him that she felt even better against him now than she had just a few minutes before. He didn't care that they were both naked, that he didn't have legs, or that his people would have an even more difficult time dealing with his altered state than he had. At that moment, he cared only that she was with him and would be thus for the rest of their days.

“Now shall we go to your family?” she asked when they'd parted lips.

“Yes. I daresay, though, that they'll be quite surprised,” he said lightly.

She giggled. “You are funny, Philip.”

They dove off the rock, hand-in-hand, and headed northeast toward England.


	8. Two Shall Become One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philip and Syrena arrive offshore from Philip's hometown. Contact with Philip's people is initially tense. Things become even more interesting when Syrena shows Philip what it means to join with a mermaid, with mind-blowing results!

Philip and Syrena swam all the way to England holding hands, except when they stopped to hunt. Their route took them first east to the Portuguese coast where they stopped to sleep. It had been too deep in the Atlantic for that. From there, they swam northward to the Isles of Scilly.

It was noticeably colder and more crowded than it had been in the Azores. Otherwise, it would have been a perfect place for the two of them to make a life together. There were plenty of fish and crustaceans. The sea floor was broad, sandy and relatively shallow, in contrast to the steep slopes dropping quickly to the deep waters of the middle Atlantic that were the rule in the Azores. The islands were close in to each other and while it may have been difficult to avoid being seen when at the surface, it would be just as difficult to be trapped.

It was, incidentally, where Philip had grown up. He'd given her the full tour of the entire island group. He found it a bit awkward, though. A lot of it consisted of them bobbing in the water while he pointed to something on land. Sometimes it was just the general direction of something quite decidedly out of sight and he hoped she had enough imagination. They now sat next to each other on some rocks just a couple of miles west of the Isle of St. Agnes, watching the sun sink toward the western horizon. He had his arm around her waist and she laid her head on his shoulder. The waves splashed them repeatedly.

“Philip!” said Syrena, her voice filled with awe. “Your home is beautiful!”

“I'm glad you like it,” he said, sounding a little apologetic. “I wish you could see it from land.”

“How does it look from there that cannot be seen from here?”

“I meant the parts on land...where I spent my boyhood...the parts we cannot visit because we don't have legs.”

She looked up at him pensively. “Philip!” she said at last. “We could have someone carry us!”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “That's an interesting idea, my love,” he said dubiously, “but I think you may underestimate how afraid my people are of you.”

“Truly?” she said, that pained expression returning to her face.

“Yes. Truly. We don't understand you and we tend to fear what we don't understand.” He sighed. “Then there was that unfortunate incident at Whitecap Bay.”

She sighed, too. “That was...regrettable. You must understand that my sisters, some far more than others...harbor very deep fear, anger, and resentment toward men...in some cases toward humans in general. We are driven by it.”

“So that explains the blind rage?” It was more of a statement.

“Yes. It is regrettable, but hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years of fermenting pain yields...you saw it.” She sighed again.

He pulled her closer, hoping it would be understood as a comforting gesture. There was still so much about her he didn't know. She seemed to take it as he meant it, for she snuggled up even closer to him, if that were possible. At that moment, he felt completely content.

“I am healing,” she said at last.

It sounded like a reference to what she'd said on Nantucket. He'd been thinking about it ever since then and he'd wanted to ask her about it. He'd refrained, though, figuring that if she were to talk about it, he would, as usual, have to let her do it on her own volition.

“I'm glad,” he said simply.

“I am reconciled with The One,” she continued. “We are now of one heart. The One has given me a new purpose, one at odds with the old.”

He blinked. Was she saying what it sounded like she was saying? He'd been sharing the Gospels and Acts as they cruised off the coast between Virginia and Massachusetts. That was when her mood had changed. Then she'd just about collapsed into a puddle of anguish and swam off for God knew what purpose. When he'd found her in the Azores, he'd have sworn her entire demeanor had changed. Was her soul now redeemed? The Church—Anglican, Roman Catholic, Protestant, it didn't much matter—had well-defined and usually unyielding ideas about just what one had to do in order to “be saved.”

What if the Church was wrong about that, too? Hadn't Jesus simply said, “Believe in Me?” If it were really that simple—and now that he thought about it, he had no reason to think otherwise—why had the Church made the whole thing so complicated? The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that the Church, which was supposed to be the instrument of the communication of God's message, was failing egregiously in its mission. That bothered him. Where else had the Church erred? He decided that whatever it was, he should let it remain between her and God...and wasn't that the point anyway? If she were going to expound on it, she would. It wasn't something that should be pushed, especially not with her.

“What is your new purpose?”

“Remember what we did during that storm on the Carolina coast?”

“Yes.”

“That.”

That made him smile. “You're amazing. I love you.” He kissed her on the top of the head.

“What is your plan, Philip?” she asked after a few more moments of silence.

“My plan for...visiting my family?”

“Yes.”

“I'm still working on it. We need to keep them from seeing our tails...at least at first. Otherwise they'll panic and either run or try to kill us...or both.”

“When do we marry?”

He blinked. He still wasn't used to her abrupt changes in subject. Something else chose that moment to distract him. It was familiar and both welcome and uncomfortable, but certainly not something anyone but his wife had any business seeing...and his mermaid companion wasn't his wife quite yet. He squirmed a little, hoping his fiancee wouldn't notice. Naturally, she noticed anyway.

She looked up at him and furrowed her brow. “Philip, you are stiff. Is something...” She broke off as she glanced down. “Oh....” She looked back up at his face. “Wonderful! It works!”

He took the opportunity to change the subject. “We'll wed when the opportunity presents itself.”

She looked at him dubiously. “When will that be?”

He really had no idea. The whole plan—what there was of it—would be greatly influenced by whom they met first and whether or not he could arrange for the Vicar to pay a visit before someone noticed their tails and panicked. “I honestly don't know...yet. I'll make it a priority.”

That seemed to be good enough. “Shall we go now?”

He thought for a moment. “Yes. But when we arrive, we should look and listen first. If possible, we should emerge only under low light...clouds...early dawn...near dusk.”

“Agreed.”

With that, they kissed each other again and dove into the sea.

*****

It didn't take long for them to reach the small harbor north of Hugh Town--Philip's home town--on the western end of St. Mary's Island. There were still too many unknown variables, so he decided to simply play things by ear...which was another metaphor he had to explain to Syrena.

They swam along the bottom to decrease the chances that they'd be noticed. They spent the night and much of the next day swimming around and listening before heading into Town Harbor proper. A few wooden docks jutted out into the small bay, their western bases anchored to a long north-south-trending stone seawall. They swam up under the sea-most one and carefully surfaced in the late afternoon light. He heard voices...a single voice, actually. He recognized it as belonging to the Vicar. So far, so good. Then he noticed something that made him shudder.

 _What is it?_ asked Syrena.

 _They're...giving my eulogy!_

 _What is a eulogy?_

 _It's my funeral_. He sensed her confusion and explained further. _It's a ritual we observe when someone dies._

 _But...you are not dead._

 _I know! Clearly my people think so_. He sighed. _There's only one thing to do_. With that, he ducked under the surface and swam over to the dock on which the townspeople were standing and resurfaced beneath it, Syrena right behind him.

The tide was high so he was reasonably sure that what he was about to try would be successful. He moved over to the edge of the dock, reached up with one hand to grasp the end of a plank and rose so that his face and neck were visible above dock-level. He looked around and recognized everybody. The Vicar stood with his back to Philip and everyone else stood facing him. Most of them held their eyes downcast. Several were crying, especially Philip's mother.

He just couldn't bear it. “I now understand how Lazarus must have felt,” he said loudly.

The Vicar abruptly stopped mid-word. At first, most of the people looked around, clearly expecting to find him standing somewhere. A couple of people started violently. Then a little girl looked straight at him and squealed.

“Uncle Philip!” She ran the few steps across the dock and dropped to her knees in front of him. “You're alive!”

“So I am, Lizzie dear,” he said warmly.

Everyone else's eyes followed the girl. One by one, their jaws dropped as they noticed Philip.

“Everyone,” he said before they'd regained their composure, “I have someone I'd like you to meet.”

As if on cue, Syrena rose from the water and placed a hand on a plank, holding her head up just like Philip had.

“This is Syrena...my fiancee.”

She smiled silently. Everyone else kept staring.

Lizzie looked over at Syrena. “You're pretty,” said Lizzy simply, then held out her hand.

Syrena peered at it quizzically. Philip sent her a mental image of the hand-shaking custom, which Syrena apparently didn't know. Her face lit up with the realization and then reached up to shake Lizzie's hand.

“I am pleased to meet you...Lizzie,” said Syrena. Lizzie giggled a little, then stood up.

“Since everyone's here...” said Philip, “...especially you, Vicar...and since we're already in the middle of a ceremony, I'd like to suggest we simply change the ceremony.”

“You...you wish to be wed? Now?” said the Vicar, clearly following what Philip had in mind.

“Yes,” said Philip, exchanging an excited glance with his beloved. “Right here, right now.”

The Vicar hesitated. “In...the water?”

“Yes.”

“This is highly irregular.”

 _You have no idea_ , he wanted to say. Instead, “Yes, yes it is. Let it suffice to say that we have our reasons.” His tail was also beginning to cramp a little. They were both holding theirs at right angles under to dock to further reduce the visibility of those appendages.

The Vicar sighed. “Very well. Far be it from me to deny ourselves the opportunity to turn a sad occasion into a joyous one!” He took a deep breath. “Dearly beloved, we are now gathered together, in the sight of God and these witnesses, to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony. This is an honorable estate, instituted of God. It is therefore not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons come now to be joined.

“Do you, Philip, take this woman to be thy lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, for better or worse, in richer and poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” he said, smiling at Syrena.

“Do you, Syrena, take this man to be thy lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or worse, in richer and poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” she said, smiling at Philip.

“Then what God joins together, let man never rent asunder. By the power invested in me by the Lord Almighty and by the Kingdom of Great Britain, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Philip did so, to the sound of thunderous applause. He wasn't sure how much of that was because he just got married and how much was because he was most decidedly not dead. He was even less sure whether or not it really mattered.

Now are we permitted to...engage in conjugation? she asked mid-kiss.

Yes, he replied, now we may...

She interrupted him. Good! She pulled back from the kiss, planted her hands on his shoulders and, with a few powerful strokes of her tail, drove him downward.

He didn't object one bit. He only briefly thought about what all the people up there would think of what they'd just seen. Surely Syrena's tail had broken the surface and surely someone had noticed. They'd have concluded that he'd just married a mermaid who'd also just dragged him to the bottom to have her way with him. They would, of course, have been completely correct. It wasn't his concern at the moment and they'd deal with that in a little while. Right now, he had a new wife hell-bent on relieving him of his virginity and he fully intended to assist her in that pursuit.

Philip felt his back hit the sand, Syrena pinning him to it, kissing him. She briefly released him and he expelled the air from his lungs, drawing in water before accepting her next kiss. The bubbles rushed around her.

 _That tickles!_ she giggled in his mind.

 _If I had any more air, I'd do it again. Since I don't..._ He didn't quite finish the thought.

She settled on top of him, her tail stretched out along his. They'd barely started and already he was thoroughly enjoying it. She wiggled a little against him in a particularly pleasant way. He immediately felt two interesting sensations, almost at the same time.

The first was a stirring in his loin—he briefly mused on the fact that he really only had one loin—a stirring like the one he'd experienced the day before. Only now he was free to follow it at will. The second was a pressure against his mind. Syrena was pushing against it with her own. At first, he resisted, but she was insistent. The mental pressure continued with what he could only perceive as a sort of seductive insistence. He yielded and felt the presence of her mind inside his own. It wasn't strong, but it was there. He almost immediately felt a pull, an invitation for him to do the same. He followed it and suddenly felt his mind—or rather part of it—inside hers. He didn't necessarily feel like he was inhabiting both their bodies at the same time, but he could clearly feel what she was feeling just as clearly as he'd been hearing her thoughts these last few months. It was incredible. Then it got better.

She wiggled against him again, only now he also felt a little of what she did. It was similar to, but different from, what he was feeling. Then it suddenly occurred to him that he'd know just what she wanted when she wanted it and could give it to her. That realization aroused him even more. He felt himself expand outward toward her. It was a short trip, as it were, for she'd positioned herself in exactly the right place to receive him.

He rested his hands against her sides and moved them around to her back as he kissed her. She moved hers around him and dug them into the sand, pulling him even closer. He felt her firm, erect nipples pressing pleasurably into his chest. He let his palms slide down her back, his fingertips tracing her spine. He settled one hand on her waist, the other continuing across her soft skin, then past the transition to her tail. Even through the thin mucilaginous coating over her tail, he could feel her fine, feminine scales beneath his fingertips. He continued to move his hand along the base of her tail, resting it on the pleasing curve of her gluteus dorsus.

She grabbed him even more firmly and flicked her tail a little, lifting them both off the bottom. She loosened her grip on him just enough to let the water wash the sand off of her arms and his back. Then she again tightened her embrace.

He was still expanding when he began to slip into her. She yielded to him and he sensed she'd been anticipating this. She moved one hand down his back, coming to rest on his own gluteal region while he continued to unfold inside her. It was an exquisite feeling. Then she pulled the base of his tail toward herself, causing him to move inside of her. He reflexively tightened his grip on her, pulling her further onto him at the same time. He heard her mental gasp of pleasure echoing in his own.

He moved his tail to raise them even further from the bottom and found this outward motion translated pleasurably into inward motion. She reciprocated and soon they were ever so slowly swimming, holding tightly to one another, tails moving in counterpoint. Each swish translated into up-and-down motion, which in turn translated into delicious movements of him inside her. On top of that, he felt the ventral side of her tail bump gently against his, the barely perceptible pressure of her delicate feathery bits, the pleasant brush of her caudal fin against his. All of these sensations were amplified by the equal enjoyment his wife found in them, too. Surely this is what heaven must be like, he thought...but he was wrong about that, too.

The more they swam, the more he moved within her, and the stronger the sensations became. Each tail stroke sent a new, stronger wave of pleasure surging through them both. Any resistance he'd felt had by now completely evaporated and he allowed himself to become thoroughly consumed by this strange, new and wonderful bonding between himself and his beloved. Everything soon began to run together. She responded to him and he to her, back and forth, the emotions and sensations of the one feeding into the other.

They gripped each other harder, she pulling him further into herself, he straining against her. After what seemed like an eternity, when he thought he might explode, he felt a sudden release, accompanied by a powerful, overwhelming ecstasy that flowed over and through him from head to tail like a tsunami. It reverberated back and forth between them, in both body and mind, and there was no doubt at all that she was feeling it too.

His whole body stiffened for a moment and he felt her shudder against him. Then it passed, leaving them breathing heavily, basking in the warmth of their mutual embrace and the awe and wonder of what they'd just shared together. He had no idea if it was even close to what it would have been like had he been human and married to another human, but he didn't care one bit. It was how it was, and how it would be forever, just him and his mermaid.

They floated there for a minute or two, foreheads resting against each other, and he was suddenly aware that he felt tired in a strange sort of way. It wasn't bad, but he could clearly feel the aftereffects of the exertion, an exertion he would gladly repeat many times over. At first, he didn't say anything to her, nor she to him. They'd shared everything—their minds, their bodies, each feeling, each sensation. He knew what she'd been thinking and feeling and she knew the same of him. It was glorious. He could have tried to describe it further, but he would have very quickly exhausted the superlatives of several languages.

Soon he felt her mind retreating from his and his from hers, almost at the same time he felt his physical self drawing out of her and back where it usually resided. It almost tickled in a particularly odd sort of way. They drifted apart a few inches, their hands still on each other. Then he abruptly pulled her against him once more and caught her mouth in a kiss.

 _I love you!_ he told her.

 _I love you too!_ she replied.

 _That was..._ he began.

 _...amazing!_ she finished, clearly thinking the exact same thing.

He would have let out some sort of whoop, had he actually been able to do so underwater. Then he remembered his people still up on the dock. The light was still failing and while he'd completely lost track of time, it was apparent they'd still be able to see.

 _We should get back_ , he suggested.

 _Of course,_ she answered.

They rose to the surface, took a bearing, and swam back toward the dock.

 _Am I really your mermaid?_ she asked him.

He considered this for a moment before answering. _I am your husband...and you are my wife...so are you not?_

There was a moment of silence. _Yes, Philip, I am. I am very happy to be your mermaid._

Her words gave him some new warm fuzzies and he reached out to take her hand as they continued their relatively short swim to the dock.

They re-surfaced about where she'd forced him down however-many minutes ago that had been. People were crying again. The two of them grasped the dock planks and pulled themselves above it as they'd done earlier.

“What is wrong?” said Syrena. Her tone suggested she was still baffled by human behavior.

Most everyone abruptly turned toward her and their voices quited. For a few moments, they all stared.

“Uncle Philip!” squealed Lizzie as she ran toward them. “You're not drowned!”

Philip chuckled. “No, little one, I most certainly am not.”

“Elizabeth!” said her father, Philip's elder brother Joseph, “Get away from them.” He walked up and gently pulled his daughter back away from the dock edge.

“But why, Father?”

“She's a mermaid! She's dangerous.”

“I still say you're imagining things,” said Joseph's wife Caroline.

“Zounds, woman! I know what I saw.” He paused. “It's the only thing that explains...how he...” He gestured to Philip. “...managed to stay underwater for a full half-hour...” Joseph looked at his brother. “...doing God knows what.”

“We were...what is the word?” said Syrena. “Oh, yes,” she continued before anyone could answer, “consummating our marriage!” she finished cheerfully.

Various gasps and mutterings went through those on the dock.

 _My love,_ Philip told her, _we...should not discuss such things in polite company._

 _What? Why not?_

 _What we've shared...and will continue to share...is meant to be private between man and wife only. That's what makes it so special and so beautiful._

 _I see._ Then to everyone, “I...I am sorry. I am still unfamiliar with your ways. I mean no offense.”

“She deceives!” shouted David, Philip's younger brother. He stepped forward and produced a pistol, pointing it at Syrena.

Syrena jerked backward and Philip quickly moved in front of her, his arms outstretched. “What are you doing, brother? Are you mad?! You will _not_ shoot her!”

Matthew stepped forward and placed a hand on his son's arm, gently forcing the pistol downward and glaring at Philip while he did so. “Son, don't do it. We...we don't know what we saw...not truly.”

“I do! She's an abomination, Father.”

Philip lost his temper. “My wife...” He surged toward the dock, gripped it firmly and levered himself upward—which was quite easy with the help of his powerful tail. He leaned forward, holding himself up on straightened arms. “My wife is _not_ an abomination!” he shouted angrily. “And you will _not_ cast aspersions on her, nor will you pull a cloud over our happiness by trying to murder her on our wedding day!”

“So...she _is_ a mermaid?” said Matthew.

“Yes, Father,” said Philip, “she's a mermaid...and I love her.”

“Have you lost your mind?!” Philip's father seemed well on his way to one of his famous explosions.

David calmed himself somewhat with an effort of will. “I _was_ going to ask if she has sisters,” he growled.

“Oh, I do,” said Syrena, apparently still lot fully graping the severity of the situation, “but...most of them would try to kill you on sight.”

Another murmur went through the crowd.

Philip felt a firm, concentrated pressure against the base of his tail. He looked down to see his nephew Peter poking him inquisitively. Peter looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Oh, Dear Lord!” exclaimed Philip's mother Catherine, who'd only a few moments ago recovered from a fainting spell. Everyone followed her gaze, only then noticing Philip's tail, now quite clearly visible above the dock.

Matthew jumped back a pace, staring at his son. “What...?”

Philip knew there was no further use hiding anything more. He looked over his shoulder and nodded to Syrena. She slipped beneath the surface and a few moments later erupted from it. She landed on her hands, her body suspended above them for a moment before neatly and gracefully rolling down to come to rest on the dock. She sat there, her hands propped behind her and her tail stretched out in front.

 _My dear, I think you should lay some hair over your breasts. We...have a thing about that,_ he told her with his mind. She swiftly complied.

Philip kicked with his own tail, rising further from the water. He rested the edge of his hip on the dock while he pulled the remainder of his seven feet of tail from the water, then pivoted on his hands to lay that tail out in front of him right next to his wife's. He leaned lightly against her shoulder and put an arm around her. Then he just looked at his people and smiled.

Everyone gasped, the grown-ups in a mixture of shock and fear, the children in delight. Several of the little ones darted forward before their parents could stop them. They clustered around Philip and Syrena in rapt curiosity and delight. Their parents admonished them from a distance to come back.

“No,” said Syrena, “did not Jesus say, 'Let the little children come unto me?'”

“You're not our Lord!” said one mother.

“True enough,” said Philip. “But you know me, Martha...I like children.”

“For dinner?” said David.

Philip rolled his eyes and exhaled in exasperation.

“We will not hurt them,” insisted Syrena. “They are precious.”

Philip's people still seemed agitated.

“We mean you no harm,” she continued. “What must we do to prove that?”

“She has a point,” said Philip. “It's still me...Philip. I just...it's just that now I have a tail,” he said, lifting his caudal fin off the deck and waggling it a little. “Moreover, I vouch for Syrena,” he said, giving her shoulders a light squeeze, which he hoped would be reassuring. “Her people are...tragically misunderstood.”

“Uncle Philip,” interjected Lizzie, “you're slimy!” She knelt by him, touching his tail.

“So is...Aunt Syrena,” added Peter, who sat next to Syrena, touching her tail.

“Yes,” said Philip amiably, looking back and forth from one of them to the other, “yes we are.”

“It's so...long!” said another girl, gazing at their tails, her eyes moving from their bases to their caudal fins and back. This made Syrena giggle.

“What's this?” said a boy, reaching out to Philip's genital opening.

He gently took the boy's hand and slowly pushed it back. “Never you mind,” he said evenly.

“Why are you both naked?” said another boy.

“We live in the water,” said Syrena. “We do not need clothing.”

Lizzie looked Philip in the eyes. “I like her,” she said. Then she stepped over their tails, carefully lifing her skirts to avoid brushing the hems against them, scurried up and gave Syrena a hug.

Syrena returned the hug, then looked up at the adults, who seemed to be relaxing somewhat. “See? Your children are very perceptive.”

“Splendid,” said David sarcastically. “She's naked _and_ articulate.”

Philip shrugged. “I like her that way,” he said simply. Syrena smiled, then leaned over and kissed her husband.

“Well,” said Philip's mother at last, “they...do make a cute couple...for all that they have tails.” She exhaled heavily, then walked over to Philip and bent down to him, the children moving out of her way. She hugged him, then moved to hesitantly hug Syrena. “Welcome to the family, dear,” she said to her. Then to Philip, “Just don't expect me to get used to seeing you like...this,” she gestured at his tail. That seemed to further diffuse things.

The next half-hour was filled with talking and laughing. Everyone seemed to be quickly growing used to the idea that one of their own had become a merman and had married a mermaid—a mermaid who was evidently not at all like what they'd come to expect from all the legends about them.

*****

It was after dark and the last of Philip's people had departed back to their homes. Philip lay down heavily on the planks beneath them and breathed a substantial sigh. “That went...much better than I feared it would,” he said. “For that I am thankful.”

“They did not kill us,” said Syrena cheerily. She lay down next to her husband and lay a hand on his chest.

He laid his own on hers and sighed again, in contentment.

“You...you are happy?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said and looked over at her. It was pitch black and he couldn't really see her, but it didn't matter. “Yes, I am. I'm married to the woman I love, I'm back with my people and they didn't try to kill us.”

“What about...David?”

“I don't think he was serious about it. He was just afraid. Though in truth, he's nearly as dangerous that way. I doubt he would have done it...not once he recovered from his initial surprise.”

“But...you were angry. You yelled at him...and you placed yourself in front of me.”

“Serious or not, he still threatened my beloved. I have more reason now to be protective than I did when we first met. They'll warm up to us. They're just confused. First they believe I've died at sea. Then I suddenly appear out of the water with you...and talk the Vicar into marrying us. Then you drag me down into the water and they again believe me dead. Moreover, most of my people still fear and misunderstand yours. I believe they now know otherwise. Thank God it didn't turn into a disaster!” He reached over and stroked her now mostly-dry hair. “I would like to sleep right here tonight.”

“Here? On the dock?”

“Yes. I miss this.” He sensed some tension coming from her. “Don't worry, we're safe now.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Do you prefer my hair wet or dry?”

She really did know how to change the subject. “I haven't decided,” he admitted. “It feels different each way. We're creatures of two worlds, you and I. That's something else my people don't understand. In truth, I'm not sure I understand it either. Things will get better...I promise.”

She said nothing, but snuggled up to him.

“I love you, Syrena.”

“I love you, Philip.”

They lay there on the dock. The air was thankfully damp as they drifted off to sleep, still in each other's arms.


	9. In the Heart of a Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On his way to spend some quality time with his son, daughter-in-law and their children, Philip's father reminisces on the last ten years since his son returned home to marry a mermaid.

Matthew Swift stood upon a low rise that overlooked the northern bay adjacent to Hugh Town. He usually felt his years these days. Today was somewhat of an exception. Today, he could hear a collection of melodious voices coming from the general direction of the sea-wall. He knew them well. None of them were particularly loud, but they somehow carried for miles. In fact, they were often audible all over the island and sometimes from the adjacent islands if the winds were just right.

Had it really been twenty years since his son Philip had returned from the dead? It wasn't that he'd been dead...not really. It had just felt like it. In reality, though, he'd passed into an entirely new life. He still had his heart set on missionary work, which he'd originally chosen as a means of escape. It had never quite been settled just what it was his son had been trying to escape...his father, the girl who'd nearly taken his virginity, the island, any number of other perceived issues...though it was probably all of those things. His zeal for God both drew him and drove him back then. In a way, it still did.

Matthew's mind drifted from the past back to the present, back to the voices that made him feel young again. How they had that effect on him he still didn't know, nor was he alone in that regard. His wife Catherine—Philip's mother—felt it, too, as did most everyone in Hugh Town. The two of them felt it most keenly, though, and perhaps because it was their own progeny doing the singing. He walked down the street toward the shore, not feeling the aches and pains and stiff joints that normally dogged his every step. They would return...they always did...but for now he'd enjoy their absence.

He strolled past the Mermaid Inn, which his younger son David had named in honor of his sister-in-law...a testament to the fact that he'd made peace with them following his rash outburst all those years ago. In fact, it was David who had, not a week after his brother's admittedly unusual wedding, arranged and paid for a wagon to carry Philip and Syrena around the island, personally conducting them. He'd also named his first son and daughter after them.

Technically, Syrena was a mer-matron, but few referred to her as such and most regarded that as a technicality anyway. He usually dropped by, but today he wanted to spend some time with his grandchildren...the ones who weren't land-bound. He saw David's children all the time and Joseph's children lived under Matthew's own roof, so he saw them every day too. Philip's family spent so much time in the water, though.

He paused at the spot where the sea-wall rose from land to jut out into the bay, bridging the gaps between large rocks to secure the harbor. He stood there, just listening. They were singing “I Saw Three Ships.” They all sang in counterpoint, perfectly harmonizing with one another--all of them from youngest to eldest. It was beautiful. Every time he heard them singing, he thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. Even Philip, who'd never had a very good singing voice, had somehow acquired one—it was widely whispered that it had something to do with what Syrena had done to him. In fact, each of their children had perfect pitch and crystal-clear voices...even one-year-old Solomon, who hadn't even learned to talk yet, could sing—albeit wordlessly--on-key.

He waited until they'd finished their song, making no effort to hold back the tears welling up in his eyes. It had taken Matthew about a year to recover from the initial shock of seeing his son with a tail and he still wasn't completely used to it. He was cured of that the day Philip's first child was born. They were all so beautiful and not just in voice. Their eldest, Noah—born exactly one year after Philip and Syrena wed--looked just like his father, down to the coloring on his tail. Matthew remembered when Catherine had been horrified to learn that a mermaid's gestation period was twelve months!

Next were the twin girls Naomi and Helen—grown women who'd be sixteen this year. In the manner of their elder brother, they looked like their mother, down to the coloring of their tails. They were absolutely gorgeous and there was every indication that their younger siblings would be just as beautiful...or handsome. Their twin boys Artaxerxes and Julius were the first of their children to really look like both their parents. Their tail patterning was like their father's with coloring like their mother's and their facial features were a blend of both.

Gilgamesh and Mursili both had vibrant green eyes, the former bearing a blue tail with red bars, the latter a blue tail with red mottling. Maeve was their only red-head, with a tail the same coppery color. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, golden-tailed Thora reminded everyone of a Valkyrie. Solomon looked a lot like his twin elder brothers, but with a flame-red, iridescent tail.

They had ten children...so far, and Syrena was expecting an eleventh. All the girls had feathery bits on their tails like their mother and all the boys didn't; the girls had dentation on the trailing edges of their caudal fins and the boys didn't. Otherwise, it was very difficult to tell the boys from the girls pre-puberty, except that the boys lacked the vestigial nipples present in human males. Every last one of them was, of course, as naked as they were the day each was born. Everyone in town had grown accustomed to that.

It hadn't been all beds of roses over the past twenty years, though. The mer-children so far all had trouble relating to the human children and visa-versa. Noah, Naomi and Helen had all had human romantic interests. Those had all ended disastrously and there was every indication that the other mer-children would follow much the same path. The three eldest had recovered emotionally and psychologically, as was the way of teenage love.

There was still some question about how much had been attributable to the effects of mer-people on humans. There were also some questions about mer-person development, but it seemed that hormonal teenaged mer-boys and mer-girls were twice as bad as their human counterparts. It also seemed that this particular phase was much shorter than in humans, which was a blessing to everyone. Philip had once said something to the effect that it seemed his pubescent children had the power to channel the fury of a North Sea storm.

Matthew walked along the sea-wall toward Philip and his family. They were sprawled about in a jumble of tails and scales, his son and daughter-in-law with their arms full of their children. Matthew had once made the mistake of comparing them to a fish market. For some reason, Philip's entire family was very twitchy about being compared to fish and it made them all quite cross—especially Syrena, who'd once hissed at him quite irritably over it. No one, not even Syrena, had any idea why it bothered them so much.

“Grandfather!” came a chorus of young voices. He was used to his human grandchildren running up to him and he still sometimes forgot that Philip's children weren't human, didn't even have legs and were never going to come running...not to him or anyone or anything else. There was that one time last summer when Maeve had launched herself out of the water and into his arms—it had nearly thrown his back out.

He walked up and bent down to give each of them a hug, ignoring the arthritis that was returning now that the singing had ceased. He'd seen Syrena smile more and more all the time. Philip was grinning like an idiot and had a twinkle in his eye, neither of which Matthew ever remembered seeing until that day twenty years ago. It happened a lot and did his heart good to see it.

Those of Philip's family who were old enough had been busy as rescuers in the Scilly Isles. In fact, the death rate attributable to shipwrecks had plummeted since their arrival. Between storms, all of them helped with a variety of jobs involving water: fishing, shellfish harvest, salvage, boat repair, marine civil engineering, and so forth. Everyone had found them all quite useful.

Philip had been talking about renewing his previous line of work, this time as a missionary to Syrena's mermaid sisters. He'd wanted to wait until his youngest was old enough to make the arduous trip across the Atlantic. That day was being pushed back all the time with each successive child. He said he still had his heart set on that, although Matthew could tell his son's heart was quite tied up with his family.

“Matthew,” said Syrena, a slight teasing lilt to his voice, “you have been crying again. Why?” Twenty years of living so close to humans had apparently still not done enough to erase God knew how many centuries of living apart from them.

“Oh, I'm just very happy, my dear,” he said as he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek—no mean feat, what with the arthritis and the lot of them surrounded by mer-children.

“I think we might do it, Father,” said Philip. “We've been talking about it and we want to return to Whitecap Bay next year.”

“What about the children? I thought you were going to wait until you were finished having them.”

Philip and Syrena laughed together. “At his rate,” he said, shooting his wife a seductive glance, “I'm not entirely sure we're going to stop having children.”

It was Matthew's turn to laugh. “And I still seem to remember you saying something about not being interested in having a family.”

“That was long before I met this beauty,” said Philip. He leaned over and gave his wife a passionate kiss. Their children uttered various protestations about their parents kissing again, which made Matthew laugh some more.

“Seriously, son. That's a several-month trip. It's dangerous out there, especially for your kind.”

“Our kind?”

“The only people in the known world who don't fear and hate you live right here on these islands. You said so yourselves.”

“That is true,” said Syrena, “but my sisters need to be reconciled to The One.”

“Are you really going to bring all your children with you?”

“Of course!” said Philip. “It will be difficult for them, but they can all do it. It'll just take longer.”

“With all of them present,” added Syrena, “my sisters will not kill us.”

“That isn't very reassuring,” said Matthew dubiously.

“And...” Philip paused. “...there's a very real chance we'll never see you...or Mother or my brothers and their families...again.”

That clearly disturbed Philip's father.

“Matthew,” said Syrena, “do not worry. We are not going anywhere yet. It will still be four months before our baby is born, then another year before she is strong enough to swim that well.”

Her tone tended to have a way of psychologically disarming him...and most other people as well. It was uncanny. He sighed deeply. “Son, do you ever regret running off to sea like that?”

“Not for a moment,” he said.

“You didn't even hesitate. Are you sure that's not because your whole family is right here watching you?”

Philip laughed. “Father, I don't think I could be happier.”

“Nor could I,” Matthew admitted.

Maeve chose that moment to pivot around and smack her grandfather in the face with her caudal fin. She was every bit as impulsive as the Irish queen after whom she'd been named.

“Maeve!” scolded Philip. “That was not nice.”

“I'm sorry, Grandfather,” she said, tears rising in her eyes. “I...did not mean to hurt you.”

“No,” said Matthew, “it's alright.” He rubbed his jaw, which was now--along with the entire right side of his face--covered with mucus. “I'm proud to be...slimed...by my granddaughter.” He reached down and wrapped his arms around her. “That did kind of sting a little, though,” he added.

After a few moments, he asked them all to sing some more. They chose the Hallelujah Chorus. It sent shivers down Matthew's spine, but the good kind. The sound was a little unbalanced, with only Philip and Noah singing bass, the other boys tenor, and the girls split between alto and soprano. It still brought a tear to his eye—that particular part of Handel's “Messiah” always had--and he was not one to cry easily. So he sat back and basked in the glory of their song.

*****

Matthew Swift lay on a few blankets near the edge of the seawall. He had a few others and a collection of pillows propping him into what was more or less a half-sitting position. It had been a rough winter, which had been followed by a damp and chilly spring, neither or which had been particularly kind to his sixty-five-year-old body. Even that was an understatement. Today was not much of an exception. It was attempting to be sunny, but a tenacious light fog still clung to the entire western end of the island.

He'd somehow known today was going to be the day. His whole family knew what he meant by that and none of them liked it one bit. Naturally, they were all there with him by the bay and no one was smiling. Normally, they'd all have come to his bedside. However, since neither Philip nor his family could come to Matthew, Matthew had to be brought to Philip's family—hence his presence at the waterside.

David and his wife, son and daughter stood beside Joseph and his wife, sons, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and grandsons and granddaughter. On the other side and between Matthew and the water lay Philip, and his children, Syrena holding their newborn daughter Catherine in her arms.

Matthew had words to say to each of them. They were touching words and one by one, his family started crying. It took longer than it otherwise would have, for he constantly interrupted himself with fits of coughing.

“Matthew,” said Syrena, “I can save you. You need only ask.”

“What do you mean?” He was fairly certain he knew the answer already.

“I can save you,” she repeated. “You need not leave us like this.”

Yes, he thought, that was what she meant. The other adults present looked at each other nervously as they, too, caught her meaning.

Philip just raised an eyebrow. He was very happy as a merman, but he was quite certain his father would have no idea what that would entail. Moreover, Philip's happiness had nothing to do with being a merman and everything to do with being married to Syrena.

Matthew chuckled, then coughed. “May I hold Catherine?” he said, changing the subject.

Syrena complied and handed her daughter to her father-in-law. He took her in his arms and looked down at her smiling, green-eyed, blond-haired face, her seafoam green, opalescent tail hanging over his arms. A tear came to his eye. After a couple of minutes, he handed the girl back to her mother and sighed deeply...which turned into another cough.

“You're all beautiful,” he said looking around at his progeny, both the human ones and not. “You've all made me the happiest father in the world.” He looked at Syrena. “I know what you're offering to do for me. That's quite generous of you...I think.” He coughed again. “I miss Catherine and...from what you offer, I would continue to miss her...” He coughed again. “...for a very, very long time. No, my dear, I thank you, but it's my time. You've already saved me anyway...from myself and my..." cough "...bullheadedness. I'll see you all on the streets of gold...” He glanced at Philip's family. “...or the...rivers of gold. I love you all. I'll give your regards to your mother, shall I?” He coughed again, breathed in, then out...then not again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mursili was king at the height of the Hittite empire.
> 
> Maeve was a pre-Christian Irish queen renowned for aggression on the battlefield and in the bedroom.


	10. Diaspora of the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the last of Philip's human relatives prepares to leave the Scilly Isles, he and Syrena bid a fond farewell. Syrena finally learns who she was when she was human.

Nigel Loring followed his fiancee Maude Swift as she led him down toward the sea-wall protruding out into Town Harbor. One small wooden dock bobbed gently in the otherwise calm water, now attached nearer to shore than would be prudent for the larger fishing and freight fleets that once plied those waters. The rest of the bay was peppered with small boats anchored in a rough grid.

A nice spring day in late April was coming to a close. The ferry to St. Agnes had left a half-hour ago and the one from Penzance wasn't due for another hour. Summer tourists wouldn't begin to arrive until mid-May, maybe later if the weather remained cool. The two of them nearly had the harbor to themselves.

Nigel really liked the view...the one of his fiancee, that is. She wore what people generally called sensible clothing, from her head to her feet. Somehow he found it to be far more appealing than the more provocative clothing worn by most of his former girlfriends.

“So...” said Nigel hesitantly, “...why is it we're out here at this hour?”

“There's...someone I'd like you to meet,” she replied as they stepped out onto the dock. It bobbed lightly under their weight.

Nigel thought that was a bit odd, as he gazed out across the water. “And they're meeting us here?”

“Sure,” she said simply. She took a deep breath and projected, “Un-cle Phi-lip!!!”

Nigel furrowed a brow. Since when did she have an uncle Philip? “I didn't know you had an uncle Philip.”

“Well...grand-uncle...many-greats grand-uncle, to be precise.”

Nigel raised an eyebrow. He'd been quite sure all of her relatives on the island had either died or moved away and she certainly didn't have any who were old enough to be great-grand-anything, including an uncle. Still, he recalled some ambiguous information posted with some equally odd paintings and photographs over at the Mermaid Inn. The place had been in her family since it was built in the late 1700's. She'd given him a tour of the place...seeing as how she owned it following her father's death some years ago...but he'd been a bit distracted, as it were.

“Oh, and whatever you do,” she added, “don't call them fish. They don't like that.”

What? That made no sense at all. “Why would I call them fish?”

“Just don't,” she repeated flatly. “Now we eat.”

Nigel resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead set the basket on the dock. Together they spread out a blanket and sat down. A few minutes later, they were munching on sandwiches they'd just assembled.

He was suddenly aware of two people...children, from the look of them...in the water by the dock. They bobbed in what seemed to him to be a most peculiar way. “Erm...Maude? We seem to have a pair of...spectators.”

She followed his gaze and her eyes lit up. “Hello, there! Henry and...Anne, is it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said two young voices together.

“Oh, you don't have to call me that,” said Maude with a slight hint of bashfulness.

The two children in the water giggled.

“We like you, Maude,” said Henry. “You're funny.”

“Mother and Father will be here soon,” said Anne.

“Mother's having our little sister!” said Henry enthusiastically.

Maud giggled, looked over at Nigel and giggled some more. She looked back at Henry and Anne. “Oh, I'm sorry...where are my manners? Nigel, these are my cousins, Henry and Anne. Henry, Anne, this is my fiance Nigel Loring.”

“Pleased to meet you,” they said together. They bobbed over and reached up to shake Nigel's hand in turns.

 _That's odd_ , thought Nigel, _they LOOK like they're treading water...but with only one hand? And that's the strangest sort of motion I've ever seen anyone make in the water._

“What's a fiance?” asked Henry.

“It means we're getting married,” said Maude with a smile.

“Married?” said Anne, cocking her head to the side. “You're pulling our tails.”

 _Pulling our tails?_ thought Nigel. _That's a peculiar metaphor._

Maude giggled. “Not at all.”

Maude was almost interrupted by a disturbance off the end of the dock. Without warning, something erupted from the water and hurtled through the air toward her.

“Maude!” squealed a pair of voices. They sounded female, but it was initially hard to tell. At first, Nigel just saw two figures and a lot of water flying outward from them in all directions. Then they tackled his fiancee and the three of them landed in a pile of giggles and...tails? He nearly said something when another figure leaped out of the water and landed on the end of the dock.

Nigel looked closely at them. Sure enough, all three of the newcomers had fishy-looking tails where their legs should have been. They were long, maybe twice as long as the legs they replaced, and ended with a large, forked fin held horizontally like a whale's flukes. Nigel just stared. One of the newcomers noticed.

“Maude?” said one of the pair who'd tackled Nigel's fiancee, “What's wrong with him?”

Maude looked over at Nigel. “Please close your mouth, Nigel dear,” she said with a giggle. “We are not a codfish.” When he'd done so, Maude continued. “Nigel, these are my other cousins Leah and Rachel.” The pair of them, twin red-headed girls, waved and giggled. “And this is my second-cousin Mordred,” she said, nodding at the boy near the end of the dock. Mordred waved wordlessly. “This is my fiance Nigel,” said Maude.

“M...mermaids?” Nigel finally stammered. “Your cousins are mermaids?” His usual British inflappability was rapidly disintegrating.

“I'm not a mermaid!” Henry protested.

“Well, you _do_ have a girly tail,” said Anne.

“It is _not_ girly!”

“With color like that?”

“Mine doesn't have all the...fiddly bits that yours does!”

“I'm a _girl!_ Mine's _supposed_ to have fiddly bits!”

“Children!” said Maude sternly. “Let's be civil toward each other, shall we? Anne, be nice to your brother. Henry, I've seen some igneous rocks precisely the color of your tail...and there are few things as manly as a volcano.”

Henry relaxed a little.

Anne exhaled. “I'm sorry, Henry. I shouldn't tease you like that. Will you forgive me?”

Henry nodded. “Yes.” They exchanged hugs. “I _still_ wish I had Ebony's tail...or Mordred's,” he said pensively.

“Now, Henry,” said Maude, “you know God gave you the tail you have. There's nothing wrong with it.”

Henry sighed. “That's what Father says.”

“Your father's a very smart, very wise man. You should listen to him.” Maude jumped. “Ack!” she yelped in surprise. She looked down at her feet to find little Mordred fingering her toes. He looked up in alarm. “Oh, I'm sorry, Mordred. It's just...that tickled!”

He looked at her, then at her toes, furrowing his brow, then back at her.

“I think he wants to know why you have hands on your tail,” said Leia...or maybe it was Rachel...Nigel couldn't really be sure. He'd always had trouble differentiating between twins anyway.

Maude laughed. “Mordred, dear, I'm human, remember? I don't have a tail...I have legs.”

“Unbelievable,” said Nigel, shaking his head slowly. “Wait...second-cousin?”

“It's...” Maude began.

“We're not s'pos't to talk about him,” interrupted Anne.

“I think he...” Maude nodded her head toward Nigel. “...should know.”

“Alright,” said Anne, “but you'd better hurry before Mother and Father arrive. You know how they are about that.”

Maude looked at Nigel. “Mordred's parents...Arthur and Morgan...”

“They were born eighty years apart,” interrupted Anne.

“Anne, dear, please don't interrupt. As I was saying, Arthur and Morgan are siblings.”

“I...see,” said Nigel. This was getting stranger, if that was possible. “History repeats itself, I suppose.”

“The entire family regards the whole thing as a severe disgrace and most of them dislike Mordred to one degree or another.”

“Which is unfair,” said Leah. “It's not his fault.”

“Aye,” added Rachel, “he didn't do anything.”

“They're right,” said Maude. “But most of his aunts and uncles...and his grandparents...look at him and are reminded of how he came to be. They're having trouble seeing past it.”

“Well, I like him,” said Leah, reaching out toward her nephew. He scooted over and she hugged him.

“I like him, too,” said Maude. Mordred looked back up at her and blinked, his dark tail waggling a little. “Isn't he adorable?”

“Yes, I suppose he is,” said Nigel, trying to sound convincing. Truth be told, the little guy was cute. Nigel was trying desperately to wrap his mind around the whole mer-people thing and it alarmed him a little. A thought suddenly jolted in his mind. “Wait, you said they're your cousins?”

“Yes, that's right,” said Maude.

“So...you're part...mermaid?” he said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the fear--and the embarrassment of that fear--out of his voice. “Are you going to...sprout a tail if you go in the water?”

Maude laughed. “Oh, Nigel, don't be so dramatic. My great-grandparents were human. In fact, Philip used to be human. So, no, I'm fully human, too.”

Anne and Henry chose that moment to launch themselves from the water to join their sisters and nephew in a tangle of tails and fins. The girls arranged themselves so they could braid each other's hair. Maude reached into the basket still sitting at the edge of the now-rumpled up blanket and pulled out a small rock. She held it up to Henry's tail. It was the same light, pastel greenish color. “See?” she said. “This is a piece of andesite from the Clarno Formation in central Oregon on the other side of the world.”

“Really?” he said, in awe.

“Really. Besides, human men are pastel all over. So you don't have to be embarrassed about your tail, alright?”

Henry nodded, a smile spreading across his face. Maude ruffled his hair and put the rock back into the basket.

Another disturbance in the water caught the children's attention. “Father! Mother!” they squealed.

Maude turned around to see Philip and Syrena bobbing in the water. Syrena held a baby in her arms. “Oh!” Maude fawned. “You have a newborn! What's...” She glanced down at something below the water. “...her name?”

“We named her Maude,” said Philip.

“After you, of course,” added Syrena.

Maude gasped lightly. “Oh, you didn't have to do that.”

“We don't usually name our children after the living,” admitted Philip, “but we made an exception, given the circumstances.”

“Circumstances?” said Nigel. He still felt confused.

Maude shook her head slowly and laughed. “Oh, sorry...again. Where have my manners gone? Philip, Syrena, this is my fiance Nigel Loring. Nigel, this is my many-greats grand-aunt Syrena and my brand new cousin many times removed...Maude. You've already met my other cousins,” she nodded toward the children already sitting on the dock, their tails arranged in whatever positions they each found comfortable.  
Nigel extended a tentative hand and Syrena shook it. He shook Philip's hand, then those of Maude's cousins.

“I was just telling your son and daughters that Nigel doesn't believe you exist.”

“That is silly,” said Syrena. “You are to be married...why would he not believe you?”

“I think it's because few people these days believe your kind really exist. My I hold...Maude?” asked Maude.

“Of course,” said Syrena. Instead of holding out the baby, she cocked her head at Maude.

“Oh, of course!” said Maude. “How could I?” She stripped off her blouse and splashed some water on herself.

“What are you doing?” said Nigel.

“I almost killed her!” said Maude with a note of horror.

“What?”

“Newborns are quite susceptible to drying out.” She reached out to take the baby, but a tail fin came out of nowhere and whacked her on her chest, leaving a light film of mucus. She gasped, blinked and looked over to see Anne beaming at her.

“Anne,” said Philip, “you really should ask before you do that.”

“Sorry,” said Anne sheepishly.

“It's alright,” said Maude. “It didn't hurt. It was just...unexpected...and cold.” She then took the baby in her arms. “She has your tail!” she said to Syrena. “And are those light apricot bars?” The baby smiled up at Maude. “She's beautiful!”

She turned to Nigel. “Would you like to hold her?”

Nigel blinked. Normally, he wasn't averse to holding babies, but somehow this was different. “Erm....”

“I can thwack him with my tail!” Henry offered.

Nigel began to remove his shirt. He wasn't sure he believed what he was doing. He folded it up and laid it next to the basket before stepping over and kneeling down next to Henry. “Alright, lad,” he said, a tone of resignation in his voice.

Henry twisted around and smacked his tail right into Nigel's chest. It made a satisfying splat. Nigel shivered, then turned to Maude, who handed him the baby. She really was quite cute.

Maude scooted back a couple of feet. “Move back, dear,” said Maude to Nigel. “They're going to need some room.”

He complied with her request.

Without warning, Philip and Syrena erupted from the surface in a flurry of tails and scales, gobs of water flying everywhere, and settled themselves on the dock. They pivoted a little so that they sat shoulder-to-shoulder with each other and a bit to the side of their children, tails stretched out in front of them. They smiled at Nigel.

Nigel smiled back. He looked down at the baby in his arms, her tail draped over his elbow. Then he looked at the other mer-children, then at their parents, then at Maude. His smile widened and he felt a tear coming to his eye. “You know,” he said, “they're just like normal children...a normal family.”

Maude raised an eyebrow. “Nigel, dear, they _are_ normal children and they _are_ a normal family.”

“Except for _him_ ,” growled Philip, nodding at Mordred.

“Father,” said Henry in exasperation, “ _please_ stop being mean to him.”

“Aye,” added Anne. “He hasn't _done_ anything 'cept be born.”

Philip just glared. He was about to say something when Maude interrupted.

“Nigel! I have an idea. Let's adopt him!”

Nigel nearly dropped the baby. “Wh...what?” He stepped over to Syrena and handed little Maude to her mother. Then he turned back to his fiancee. “Adopt...?”

“Let's adopt Mordred! You have that lake on your property, don't you?”

“Well...yes...”

“He could live there!”

“It's more of a pond.”

“Oh, don't be so modest. It's three acres in size...that's plenty of room!”

Syrena glared at Maude. “You told him.”

Maude sighed deeply. “Aren't you two always talking about redemption and such? Let this go, please? Besides, if we take Mordred with us, then you don't have to be reminded about what his parents did. That still doesn't excuse you, though. You still have to get over it and forgive them. Your daughter's right, too. Mordred hasn't done a damn thing to either of you. He's a sweetheart and I like him.”  
She glanced over at Mordred, who was smiling at her, then back at her aunt and uncle. “So how about it?”

Philip sighed. “I...don't really know why not.”

“Erm,” Nigel interjected, “shouldn't we ask his parents?”

Everyone's faces fell. Nigel had a bad feeling that he'd just said something he shouldn't have.

“They...” Maude paused. “They killed themselves two years ago.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” said Nigel, genuinely horrified. He didn't need to ask further...he guessed the shame of what they'd done, and their parents' and siblings' response to it, had been more than they could bear. He also guessed that was why Mordred apparently didn't talk. “I...I'm so sorry.”

“We...we are healing,” said Syrena, “but slowly.”

“What does _he_ ,” Nigel nodded to Mordred, “think?”

Mordred stiffened a little in anticipation. He might be taciturn, but he clearly understood.

Maude stepped over and knelt down in front of Mordred. “Mordred, dear,” she said sweetly, “would you like to come and live with me and Nigel? I can't promise it'll be anything like the ocean, nor can I promise it'll be anything even remotely resembling a perfect life for you. But we _will_ look after you and take care of you and we _will_ love you. So...how about it? Are you at all interested?”

Mordred smiled, nodded, then looked pleadingly at his grandparents.

Philip and Syrena looked at each other. A lengthy, pregnant pause ensued. Nigel had the distinct impression the two of them were having some sort of conversation with their eyes. He caught a few very slight head motions. They might have gone unnoticed by those without an eye for subtle body language. Otherwise, he couldn't be sure.

Philip drew his tail up toward him in a way somewhat reminiscent of a human pulling their knees up to their chest, except that his tail vertebrae didn't allow him to bend quite that much. He leaned forward from the waist and rested his forearms on his tail. “Very well,” he said at last. “We'll ask Paul, Eve and...Henry to escort Mordred to your coast, but it will be your responsibility to take him to your home.”

Mordred smiled even more widely as a tear came to his eye. Maude picked him up and hugged him. She carried him over to Nigel and handed the boy to him. He was heavier than he was expecting, which was exacerbated by the thin coating of mucus covering Mordred's tail, and Nigel almost dropped him.

“There is one other thing,” said Philip. “It looks like we'll finally be making that trip back to Whitecap Bay. I know we've been saying that for decades, but it's time.”

Maude looked disappointed. “Will we ever see you again?”

“We do not know,” said Syrena. “But if you wish to visit us, that is where we will be.”

“Also, now that there are nearly a hundred and ninety of us...” said Philip.

“...my sisters will not try to kill us,” finished Syrena. She glanced at Nigel, then rolled her eyes and flopped some hair over her breasts. “Sometimes I am not surprised my sisters hate men,” she said to him.

Maude scowled at Nigel. “Nigel! Were you ogling my aunt?”

Nigel wasn't sure how to answer. He'd probably have to admit that he had, in fact, been staring at Syrena's breasts, but at the same time wondering why none of them had anything even remotely resembling clothing. He was also aware that he'd also been starting to think about how to get Mordred from the ocean to his own estate.

“She's taken, sir,” said Philip flatly, “has been for two and a half centuries.” He leaned over and kissed his wife. “With one hundred eighty-seven children,” he added.

Nigel's eyebrows went up. “One eighty-seven?! And I thought Queen Victoria had a large family!”

Everyone laughed.

“Sometimes I miss having legs,” said Philip, changing the subject. “Even Syrena sometimes wakes up after having a dream in which she has legs. Our children have the advantage of having been born with tails, so they've never known what it's like.”

“Oh, I nearly forgot!” said Maude. She reached into the picnic basket, pulled out a few papers and handed them to Philip. He and Syrena started reading over them.

“Is this...accurate?” said Syrena.

“Yes,” said Maude, “yes, it is.”

“Then....” Syrena's voice trailed off.

“What is it?” said Nigel.

“Syrena finally remembered who she was when she was human,” explained Maude. “Well, actually we had to piece it together from dream fragments and scattered archaeological evidence. It's taken a few generations. My great-great-great grandfather started it and I finally finished his research. He might have himself, had he had the Internet.”

“So who was...is...she...you...” he corrected himself as he looked at Syrena.

“I am the lost daughter of the last king of Colchis.”

“She was to be married to the king of Persia,” Maude explained. “But her ship went down in the Aegean Sea. So her younger sister was instead married to the king. Colchis was later assimilated Cimmeria and subsequently by Persia. Under the laws of the time, since Syrena is the last surviving member of any of the royal families of any of the kingdoms of Persia...” She looked back at Syrena. “You're heir to the Persian Empire.”

“But...the Persian Empire no longer exists,” said Nigel.

“True,” said Maude. “What's relevant is that her father was a king, so as the sole surviving member of the royal family...she's Queen.”

Philip's eyebrows went up. “I married royalty without realizing it!” He turned to his children. “Which makes you all princes and princesses.”

“Really?!” they all squealed.

“In addition,” continued Maude, “since the Kingdom of Colchis fell around 700 BC, that would make you...” She nodded to Syrena. “...at least two thousand six hundred years old!”

“Well,” said Philip, clearly impressed, “I knew I had a thing for older women, but...” He looked at his wife, shrugged, and then kissed her passionately, drawing some objections from their children.  
Little Maude began to fuss a little, grabbing her mother's attention. Syrena moved the hair from one of her breasts and let her daughter feed. She beamed.

Nigel seemed to remember Maude saying her aunt liked children. Clearly this was somewhat of an understatement. She was obviously completely enthralled with this one. This was to say nothing of the hundred and eighty-seven she'd already born. A hundred and eighty-seven?! Surely that was an exaggeration. He'd have to ask about that later.

“So what now...your Majesties?” said Nigel.

Philip and Syrena both giggled. Nigel was unsure how much was in amusement and how much in embarrassment. “Just because my wife is Queen,” said Philip, with a slight apologetic tone, “doesn't make me King.”

“Quite right,” Nigel agreed.

Syrena abruptly looked at him. “Does it not?”

“No, my love...it doesn't.”

She furrowed her brow. This clearly upset her, although Nigel was uncertain just why. “If I am Queen and you are my husband, then you are King!”

Philip sighed. “I'm Prince Consort, if anything.”

“Please? I want you to be King.”

“If I may,” interjected Nigel, “I'm afraid it doesn't work that way...your Majesty.”

“Why not?”

More than two thousand years old and did she still not know the basics of Royal heredity? Nigel was surprised Philip hadn't done more to fill in those gaps.

“Because,” said Philip as he placed a hand on hers, “I have no claim to your throne. I'm not even of noble, let alone royal, birth.”

“Is that...the law or custom here in Great Britain?” asked Syrena.

“Both,” said Nigel.

Syrena looked pensively at Maude. “Are the laws and customs of Colchis different? Under...my laws and customs, am I permitted to make Philip King?”

Maude frowned in concentration. “I don't know,” she said finally. “I could try to find out, if you'd like.”

“But we would be long gone before you did,” said Philip.

“Philip, my love,” Syrena pleaded, “please be my king...please?” She gazed at her husband, giving him her best doe eyes.

Philip smiled warmly. Nigel could relate. Maude did that sort of thing to him frequently—sometimes he regretted doing what she asked, but often he found himself pleasantly surprised. Philip sighed. “Very well, my dear. I will consent to being King Consort, but no more. Would that be acceptable?”

Syrena smiled back at him. “Yes. I believe it would.” She leaned over and kissed him tenderly, apparently oblivious to the newborn daughter still suckling at her breast.

“Noah will be surprised to learn that he's Crown Prince,” said Maude. Everyone chuckled.

“And Noah would be...?” asked Nigel.

“Their first-born,” said Maude.

“Of course.” Sometimes he felt like an idiot and now was one of those times. He hoped his oversight hadn't been too obvious.

“You're really going to swim across the ocean?” said Maude. “With a newborn?”

“It will be...inconvenient, but we now have all of our children to help.”

“I think it's clear there will never be a perfect time,” continued Philip. “We kept saying, 'when this child is old enough.' Then we'd have another...and another...and another.” He smiled. “Oh, I sure do love them.” He chuckled. “And to think there was a time I didn't want a family.” He wiped a tear from his cheek, then put an arm around his wife. “The human population here remains comparatively small, but it's still much greater than it was when we first arrived. Still, we're feeling more and more crowded every year. We have to go further and further to sea to avoid competing with you for the available fish. These waters have been good to us and have been a very good place to raise our family. But it's time. It's crowded and noisy.”

“Where is this Whitecap Bay?” said Nigel.

“It's in the Caribbean,” said Maude.

“Hell,” said Nigel, “the Caribbean's even worse.”

“Perhaps,” said Syrena, “but it is my home...and the home of my sisters. We may not settle there, but we will tarry long enough to bring them into one heart with The One...as many as will.”

“Then what?”

“We do not know.”

“The Galapagos are still out of the way,” said Maude helpfully, “and should be for some time. You could go there.”

Syrena leaned forward. “Maude, please tell us more about these...Galapagos Islands.”

Maude and Nigel spent a good half-hour sharing what they knew about that island group. It wasn't much and a goodly third of that time was taken by questions from Syrena. Nigel wondered if she'd always been this inquisitive, or if it was because she wanted to know as much as she could about where she and Philip might make their family's new home and how best to reach those waters.

“That sounds very nice,” said Philip. “It won't be here, of course, and we'll all miss you as well. But it has promise. In truth, though, the world has grown very crowded indeed. The more we can stay out of its way, the better.”

Maude sighed in resignation. “After three hundred years, our people _still_ fear and misunderstand yours. It's...tragic at best.”

“Some day,” said Philip, “our people will find a way to live and work together. Even with all your self-proclaimed enlightenment, you still have much to learn and far to go.”  
Nigel raised an eyebrow.

Philip chuckled and shook his head slowly. “I know, I'm speaking with the cynicism of someone three hundred and eighty-five years old. But, yes, I still believe every soul...both human and otherwise...can be saved. May it happen before our Lord's return.”

“From what you say, I agree with my husband. The Galapagos sound like a good place and we will strongly consider your suggestion,” added Syrena.  
A couple of minutes of silence ensued.

“I'm going to miss you all terribly,” said Maude.

“We'll miss you, too,” said Philip. “We've spent many years building a good life here. We're invested in both time and relationships. Though we must admit the latter have been rapidly disintegrating over the last few decades. When you leave, my dear...well, there won't be much to hold us here. It's grown noisy and crowded and there may not be much of a place left for us here. It's time to leave these shores. You'll know where to find us.”

*****

Over the next couple of days, Maude and Nigel made all the final arrangements. She wrapped up all the remaining loose ends involved in the sale of the Mermaid Inn. She finished packing up all her belongings and seeing to their transportation off the island. Nigel made sure things were in order to make young Mordred at home. Then they all reconvened on the dock as before.

Philip, Syrena and all their children—save for the few who'd either been killed or had drifted away over the years to explore the world—surfaced in the small bay. Together, they lifted a hundred and fifty voices to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. It was the most beautiful thing Nigel had ever heard and he doubted he'd ever hear anything like it ever again this side of heaven. They later learned the song was audible as far away as central Cornwall.

Tears flowed freely as merman, mermaid and merchild one by one disappeared beneath the waves, never to be seen in those waters again.


End file.
